The art of Marine de Soos is very restrained—silent, one might say. It asks its viewers to set aside their everyday world and to be attentive… It is the soul that inhabits the bodies sculpted by Marine de Soos.
Movements, gestures, and attitudes are imbued with thought. It is an art full of gravity and tragic meaning.

A keen observer of her contemporaries, Marine de Soos works as close as possible to the emotion she feels when looking at images from current events. Women and children, in their distress or their serenity, haunt her. 

Through her works, she seeks to translate the gazes we encounter yet do not truly see in the daily spectacle of world news… This is natural; it has always been so. It takes the mediation of art to be able to look the world in the face.

When you have spent time before a figure by Marine de Soos, you will retain the memory of its gaze… This invisible element underlies the sculpted body; it is the immaterial center of the work. It is mysterious, but that is how it is…

You will also carry in your memory the trace of an emotion—the one felt when, suddenly, you have shared the inner vision of our distant and silent fellow beings.

This is not a spectacular art, nor an expressionist one; it is an art of presence, despite the fluidity of movement and the grace of form. The strength of the work lies in the rigor and accuracy of the underlying architecture of forms.

Aude de Kerros
May 2002

For the National Museum of Women in the Arts*

* The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), Washington, D.C., aims to recognize the talent and works of women artists regardless of their nationality or era by exhibiting, preserving, acquiring, and promoting research on their works.