Marko 93

Born in 1971 in Le Mans, the artist settled in Saint-Denis where he began doing graffiti around 1988, swept up in the emerging hip-hop culture of the Paris suburbs. Initially influenced by New York wild-style lettering, he discovered Arabic calligraphy in the early 1990s through the work of Hassan Massoudy. He began cutting his spray caps to achieve thick and thin strokes, crafting abstract letterforms at the crossroads of graffiti and calligraphy — becoming one of the pioneers of European calligraffiti.

In the 2000s, he took up light painting in the footsteps of Man Ray and Picasso: trails of light captured in long-exposure photography turned public space into an ephemeral canvas. He invented the Monulight, a monumental collective light-painting performance bringing together hundreds of participants, with the Basilica of Saint-Denis as his stage. His visual alphabet draws on Arabic, Asian, kanji and vertical Mongolian scripts.

Based at the 6B, an iconic creative hub in Saint-Denis, Marko 93 has taken his practice from Rio to Hong Kong, Shanghai to Abu Dhabi. His work is shown through Artsper and Nest Gallery, and has been covered by StreetPress, Posca and Beware Magazine.