the storytelling art manifesto

Marc Ferrero, pioneer of Storytelling Art

an out-of-the-box artist
In the contemporary art scene, some artists are part of established trends, others are inventing new paths. Marc Ferrero belongs to the latter category. For over thirty years, he has built up an original body of work that goes beyond mere aesthetics to become a veritable narrative language. With him, painting doesn't just show: it tells. It was this pioneering approach that gave rise to Storytelling Art.

"I've always thought that a painting should be like a chapter in a novel. Each work has its own autonomy, but it takes on its full meaning within a narrative whole." - Marc Ferrero

The Empire of Acceleration is a pictorial fresco that recounts the struggle between two worlds: that of speed and competition, and that of creative resistance. Each canvas is a scene, each character a recurring protagonist.

A singular trajectory

Born with an early passion for comics and graphic novels, Ferrero soon felt the need tocombine narrative and painting. Where many contemporary artists explore abstraction or concept, he chooses to reintroduce characters, plots and worlds.
In a career spanning more than thirty years, he has produced and sold over 10,000 works worldwide. His studio-showroom in Èze, which houses over 200 canvases, is both a home and a theater for visual narratives.

The invention of the painted graphic novel

Ferrero's great innovation is the concept of the painted graphic novel: a story that unfolds not in printed plates, but in monumental canvases.

Heroes include :

Lisa Laventura, nicknamed "The Queen of Metamorphosis", a powerful and mysterious female figure.
Duke Spencer Percival, strategist and resistance fighter in the "Disqualified World".
Don Cello Cordoba, the epitome of Latin elegance and moral strength.

These characters become the common threads of an entire universe.

"Just as a writer creates his characters, I paint mine. They grow, they change, and the viewer finds them again from one painting to the next." - Marc Ferrero

An artist recognized beyond the canvas

"I don't believe in the strict separation between art and design, between painting and object. What interests me is spreading an imaginary world." - Marc Ferrero

Marc Ferrero's originality has enabled him to collaborate with major players in luxury and culture.

👉 In 2019, watchmaker Hublot commissioned him to create a series of watches inspired by his visual universe(Big Bang One Click Lipstick), bringing Storytelling Art into high-end watchmaking.

👉 With Ferrari, he has designed creations that marry automotive aesthetics with his pictorial language.

These collaborations are not simply "by-products": they extend the principle of Storytelling Art, which seeks to reach out to different media and tell stories in everyday objects.

Emblematic works

Some of Ferrero's canvases epitomize his approach:

Lipstick (1999): a heroine applying lipstick becomes a narrative icon. More than an aesthetic gesture, it's a metaphor for the role of image in self-construction.
Brainstorming (2005): an abundant composition in which several characters interact in a tense atmosphere, suggesting an invisible plot.
Explorateurs (2010): a group of figures projected into an urban universe, searching for meaning in the face of the speed of the modern world.

Each canvas is a visual chapter that calls up other chapters, and places the viewer in a continuum.

Opening up to the audiovisual world and immersion

With The Empire of Acceleration, Ferrero has taken a decisive step: its pictorial universe is being developed for an audiovisual adaptation, in partnership with the producer of Sin City.

At the same time, he is preparing an immersive exhibition where viewers can choose a hero (Lisa, Duke or Don Cello) and live a personalized adventure.
This exhibition combines painting, narrative and immersive technologies to transform the visit into a total narrative experience.

Marc Ferrero, painter-teller of the XXIᵉ century

"Without a story, an image is just a surface. With a story, it becomes a world." - Marc Ferrero

At a time when contemporary art is exploring the frontiers of technology and concept, Marc Ferrero reminds us of the obvious: man needs stories. In this sense, he follows in the footsteps of the great narrative artists, while at the same time inventing a movement for our time.
The Storytelling Art he founded is not just a pictorial style: it's a new way of conceiving the relationship between artist, work and viewer.

Conclusion:

Marc Ferrero is a pioneer because he has invented a language that contemporary art lacked: that of an assumed pictorial narrative.
His work, rich in thousands of canvases, recurring characters and prestigious collaborations, opens up an unprecedented field where art becomes a novel, an experience and a shared universe.
In this, he is not only a painter, but a storyteller of the XXIᵉ century, capable of inscribing painting in the great tradition of human narratives, while anchoring it in the issues of our modernity.

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