Marius
Andre
Artist Statement:
“Care flows naturally if the self is widened and deepened so that protection of free nature is felt and conceived of as protection of our very selves. we must find and develop therapies which heal our relations with the widest community, that of all living beings.” - Arne Naess
The woods in my neighborhood were a kingdom, with towering spires of trees. A leaning, uprooted tree became a house for the two small troll statues on my bookshelf. My dad would tell me stories about how they came alive while I slept and went on adventures with the neighbor’s cat. Gripping tight to her fur as they sped through the woods. Every morning the trolls would return just before the sun rose, turning them back to stone. I would wake up, looking over at my shelf and see them in a slightly different position than they had been the night before. They were magic and when I was in the woods, I was entangled in the magic. As I grew older I learned that trolls weren’t real, but to me the magic still was.
The majority of our human experience consists of our relationships and entanglement with the external world beyond our interiors. Our continued isolation from and exploitation of the natural, external world has mangled our value of and connections to the life around us. We have untangled ourselves from our regional environments, our biota, resulting in direct and patchy changes to our world. An enchanted world that we are continuously distancing ourselves from, replacing the narrative, subjective, and grown with the informational, objective, and fabricated. But I was enchanted by the magic of the forest, entangled through stories like my dad’s and the troll figurines on my shelf.
My works resist rational relationships, interrupting our expectations of nature and through dynamic elements, such as interactivity and sound, rekindle the magic of our entangled world. Using living materials, natural processes, and through site-specific interventions my works re-entangle themselves with the more-than human world and evolve into lively decaying systems. They act as conduits for wonder, for magic, inspiring a moment of consciousness to pause, notice, and be mindful of these tangles, maybe even pull at them yourself.
Marius Mathias Soldal Andre is a multidisciplinary artist, musician, and creator. Born in Boston MA to an American father and Norwegian mother, he is a third culture kid having moved away from his hometown on Cape Cod MA when he was eight years old. He spent the rest of his childhood in Istanbul Türkiye and Baku Azerbaijan where he graduated high school with an IB Diploma. Before continuing his academic career at the Rhode Island School of Design, Marius spent a gap year in Voss Norway where he became a licensed ski instructor, completed an album, and explored the vast wilderness of Scandinavia.
Growing up exposed to all these cultures kindled his interest in the natural world, shaped by the Norwegian philosophy of 'Friluftsliv' (translating literally to 'open air life'), and how the unique human experience and our diverse cultures can enchant our relationships with the natural world. Marius uses his art as a method of communicating concepts, emotions, and observations, focused on re-imbuing our daily lives with wonder and enchantment with the natural and more-than-human world.