Marie Sand is a French painter known for her expressive paintings of scenes from nature and horses. She has painted in some of the most popular regions of France including Provence, Normandy, Dordogne and Paris, her hometown. When she was twenty-five, Marie was diagnosed with a cancer that turned her life upside down. Raised with social conventions that discouraged the expression of emotions, she has since realized that nature and horses can help us to connect with our sensitivity. She left the corporate world to become an environmentalist working for the World Wildlife Fund in DC. Now Marie is a full-time painter interpreting emotional life through her work.  

Marie’s work has been exhibited in solo and group shows throughout Europe. She has won several audience awards and her work was featured in several French and Finnish newspapers. She has lived in Rome, Italy and Helsinki, Finland. She has relocated in her home country in 2020. She now lives in the Monts d'Ardèche in the South of France. Marie draws on the practice of traditional European masters revisited by American contemporary painters. She studied at the Washington Studio School in Washington, D.C.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Through my art, I encourage sensitive people to connect with their emotions. I use nature, and more specifically horses, to interpret what people feel and translate their sensitivity into drawing or painting. Though I have always been hypersensitive, I was brought up to suppress my emotions. I first attempted to adapt to the external world by denying my emotions until “I was out of my feelings.” My cancer diagnosis at twenty-five changed things. I started to paint again. I connected with nature through my work with the World Wildlife Fund. I was very impressed to meet with communities who live in hostile environments everyday like in Namibia. It gave me the courage to face my sensitivity.