Marc Raymond

Marc Raymond (born 8 November 1968, Martigny, Switzerland) is a Swiss sculptor who works with painted wood and plywood to create abstract sculptures.

His sculptures and works on paper have been exhibited in galleries and cultural centres during personal and group exhibitions in Switzerland, Canada, France, Germany, Portugal and Greece.

Raymond now lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal.

After his schooling, he trained as a carpenter and cabinetmaker, then studied at the Brienz School of Sculpture . At the beginning of his career, Raymond's sculptures were centred on the human being. Over time, his sculptures become more raw and massive.

In 1991 he spent six months in the United States and in 1999 and 2000 he spent a year in China. thumb leftRaymond won first prize for the creation of a sculpture in marble for the Saillon's School Centre. Representing a group of children, this sculpture prefigures, through its very simple forms and raw material, the evolution of the artist's movement toward the abstract. thumb

In 2004, he exhibited raw human figures in wood, as well as a series of concrete sculptures, at the Gallery Grande-Fontaine in Sion, Switzerland. The coherence of the works is found in the play of balance, imbalance and internal tensions. The sculptures are placed on the ground, on pedestals or inclined against walls. They were exhibited during several personal exhibitions - notably at the Center des Art Léo-Ayotte in Shawinigan, Quebec, Canada, in 2008; at the Art School Gallery in Ottawa, Canada, in 2009; as well as at the Athens Art Gallery in Athens, Greece, in 2014 with a text by Swiss curator Benoît Antille.

In 2013, the artist created the first sculpture from the series Bout à bout, with Rouge n.1. It was exhibited in the garden of the residence of the Swiss ambassador in Athens then at the Athens Art Gallery in 2014. This series is made of raw construction timber assembled end to end. Built with fir and larch boards, common building materials in Switzerland, his sculptures become more massive and bare. The raw material and the assemblages can be seen, while parts of the sculpture are painted in bright colours.

In 2019, his solo exhibition Éloge à la Main (Praise to the Hand) took place at the Athens Art Gallery in Greece, with a text by independent curator and art critic Maria Xypolopoulou for the catalogue. Alongside his sculptures, which tend more and more toward simplicity, he exhibits the continuation of the Bout à bout series with the sculptures Construction 1, 2 and 3 as well as twenty decoupages on paper forming a rectangle on a side.

Marc Raymond lives and works in Lisbon. 2019: Praise to the Hand, Athens Art Gallery, text by Maria Xypolopoulou, Athens, Greece 2004: Galerie Grande Fontaine, with Gilles Scherlé, Sion, Switzerland 2018: Arthoteque of the canton of Valais, Sion, Switzerland 2017: Summer exhibition, Athens Art Gallery, Athens, Greece 2001: Eight Artists, Galerie La Grange in Vannay, Monthey, Switzerland

Honours 2016: Prize of the Academy of Athens for the book National Garden, by Nikolaos Tambakis and Elissabet Bargianni, photographs by Marc Raymond

Publications