Artist Biography

An Artistic Journey Between Worlds

Marcellus Steiner

From Craft to Calling

Marcel Steiner was born in Basel on January 31, 1973, son of furniture maker Johann Steiner and Rosa Steiner. He grew up with his older brother Harry, now an electrician, and his younger sister Olivia, also an artist, in Aesch BL. His childhood and school years from 1977 to 1989 were shaped by proximity to nature and a family in which craftsmanship held high value.

At his father's wish, Marcel first learned a solid trade. At just 15 years old, he began his boat-building apprenticeship in Biel in 1989, completing it in 1993 with top marks. Yet even during this time, his true passion revealed itself: painting had captivated him since childhood. Parallel to his boat-building apprenticeship, he attended courses in freehand and perspective drawing at the Kunstgewerbeschule Biel from 1991 to 1993, followed by the Assenza painting school in Dornach (1993-1994).

From 1994 to 1996, he worked in the Nunningen studio, developing his own artistic style as an autodidact. Painting increasingly became his life's purpose, while boat-building served as a means of income.

The Travel Years - Searching for Self

In 1997, an extensive journey began through Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa: Italy, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, and France. He painted along the way, drawing inspiration from landscapes and encounters. To finance his travels, he worked intermittently as a boat builder in Thun (1998) and Le Bouveret (1999). During this period, he adopted the artist name Marcellus, under which he has since signed his works.

In 2000, he built himself a live-work studio in Bärschwil – a place of tranquility and creativity. From 2001, his travels took him to India and Nepal, journeys that would fundamentally shape his artistic practice.

The First Turning Point - When the Flames Showed the Way

Christmas Eve 2003 brought an existential rupture. A fire destroyed his entire studio-residence in Bärschwil. All paintings, self-made furniture, personal documents – everything was lost. What initially appeared as catastrophe became a moment of clarification. The material loss freed him from ballast and showed him with clarity that painting was his true path. This insight led to a conscious decision: he would dedicate his life entirely to art.

India - A New Artistic Home

In 2005, he worked temporarily in the Liesberg studio, but in 2006 he took the decisive step: he relocated his studio to North India, to Haripur near Haridwar on the Ganges – one of Hinduism's significant pilgrimage sites, about 200 kilometers north of Delhi.

In this spiritually charged environment, his painting developed into that particular synthesis of Western painting tradition and Eastern philosophy that characterizes his work to this day. The encounter with Indian culture, the sadhus, and the philosophy of the cycle of life and death left deep traces in his artistic work. At a place of mourning, a Samadhi temple was later erected, still attracting pilgrims today – a symbol of transformation from transience into spiritual presence.

Art as Social Engagement

In Newbasti, a neighborhood of Haridwar, he founded a small painting school for children from low-income families. Teaching became an important part of his life – he passed on what art meant to him and enabled young people access to their own creativity.

His work gained recognition in the Indian art scene. Between 2006 and 2008, significant exhibitions followed: in 2007 at the Swiss Embassy in New Delhi, in 2008 at the renowned AIFACS Gallery and at the India Habitat Center, where his solo exhibition "Moments" attracted considerable attention.

Art curator Dr. Alka Pande praised his works as spiritual with deep emotional character. Contemporary Indian painter Vigyan Vrat emphasized the special dedication with which this Western artist captured Indian culture and brought it to life in his paintings.

His watercolor drawings and oil paintings depicted street musicians, children, elderly people – everyday life rendered with great expressiveness and subtle nuances.

Encounters and New Beginnings

In 2007, Marcellus met Pallavi at an exhibition commemorating "60 Years Swiss-Indian Friendship" in Basel – an Indian woman who had grown up in Europe. They married in India in 2008. However, the marriage failed after a short time when family resistance proved insurmountable. The separation was painful and led to a period of withdrawal. He temporarily gave up his studio in India and returned to Switzerland in 2009. Through meditation and concentration on his painting, he gradually found his way back to inner stability.

In 2010, during another trip to India, Marcellus met Jini, a Korean woman. It was an encounter that would lastingly change his life. In 2011, he opened a studio in South Korea and exhibited at the Jari Art Gallery in Gwangju. In 2012, Marcellus and Jini married in South Korea – the beginning of a stable and happy partnership.

In the following years, he worked in studios between North India (2013-2014) and Röschenz, where the couple eventually settled. After two years in a modest forest house, they found a permanent home. Following his father Johann's death in 2016, they moved into his mother Rosa's house, where they occupy a separate apartment.

Return to Craft - Steiner Werft

In 2015, Marcellus founded the company Art Praxis Steiner in Röschenz, followed two years later by Steiner Werft in Grellingen. The boat-building craft learned in youth experienced a renaissance – now combined with artistic ambition and ecological consciousness.

From 2017 to 2024, handcrafted boats were created in his workshop in the Büttenen industrial area: the Chessiloch barge made of regional larch and robinia wood, classic rowboats, canoes, and electric boats. His constructions emphasized sustainable materials and environmentally friendly propulsion – muscle power, sun, or wind instead of conventional motors.

In 2024, he offered public boat tours on the Grellinger Moossee for the first time – a contemplative experience that opened a new perspective on the Chessiloch landscape for visitors. The local press praised this unusual offering, especially during the village festival "750 Years Grellingen."

A New Challenge

In 2024, Marcellus received a medical diagnosis initially suggesting Parkinson's disease. Further examinations brought no definitive clarification – to this day, the exact nature of his illness remains uncertain. The health limitations forced him to close Steiner Werft at the end of 2024.

It marked another turning point in a life that had already required multiple new beginnings. Yet Marcellus has learned over the years to deal with uncertainty and change. Meditation provides him with inner calm, and art remains his constant companion – not as escape, but as a path to self-encounter.

Present and Perspective - The Essence of Creation

Since 2025, Marcellus has devoted himself intensively to painting and photographic study work. His current works display a mature, meditative quality. The themes that have occupied him throughout his life – human and nature, presence and transience, body and space – condense into a powerful artistic statement.

His pictorial worlds move between the extreme altitudes of the Himalayas and the familiar landscapes of Europe, between staged portrait sessions and fleeting street scenes. What unites all these works is the question of humanity's place in its environment – not as master, but as an integral part of a living network.

His exhibition history spans a wide arc: from the Gewerbeschule Lucerne in 1991 through significant stations in India (Swiss Embassy, AIFACS Gallery, India Habitat Center), Korea (Jari Art Gallery Gwangju), and Italy (BPS Banca Popolare di Sondrio) to numerous solo exhibitions in Switzerland – Basel, Aesch, Laufen, Grindel, Röschenz, and most recently in 2017 at the Rosengarten Senior Center Laufental.

A Life Between Worlds

Marcellus Steiner is boat builder, painter, world traveler, teacher, and visionary. His life path is marked by ruptures and new beginnings, by losses and regained hope. Three decisive turning points have shaped his life: the studio fire in 2003, which led him to India; the failed marriage in 2008, after which he met Jini; and the illness in 2024, which returns him to concentration on painting.

Each time, a new door opened. After the fire, he found spiritual depth and artistic maturity. After the separation, he found a stable, fulfilling partnership. And now, after the health-related closure of the workshop, he turns again intensively to what has always been the core of his life: painting.

The charity projects he conducts under the name "charity art praxis" demonstrate his social commitment. Protecting the earth and supporting disadvantaged people – especially children – are matters close to his heart. Through the sale of older works, he supports environmental projects, continuing his work from his Indian years.

Artistic Philosophy

For Marcellus, painting is more than image production – it is a process of recognition that leads him to himself. The spectrum of his work ranges from quick, intuitive sketches to elaborated landscape compositions and surreal pictorial worlds. This stylistic diversity does not stem from a programmatic approach but follows different states of perception and the demands of each particular motif.

His working process is characterized by an openness toward the material and the creative process itself. The years as a boat builder taught him to understand materials and work with precision; the years in India taught him to let go and trust the process. These two poles – control and surrender – continue to define his artistic practice today.

Shaped by craft precision from his boat-building training and meditative depth from his years in India, Marcellus Steiner has found an independent artistic path. His works are testimonies to a lifelong engagement with existential questions: the relationship between transience and presence, between solitude and connection, between outer landscape and inner space.

Today

Today, Marcellus Steiner lives with his wife Jini in his mother Rosa's house in Röschenz. His studio is located at Witzlenstein 21, with postal address Im Brühl 12. Despite health challenges, he remains creatively active. Painting and photography are his current forms of expression – media through which he continues his engagement with body, space, and presence.

His family supports him: brother Harry, together with Florian Sax, designed the professional website marcellus-art.com; sister Olivia is also creatively active as a guitar teacher and artist. And Jini is the constant companion, the partner through all phases of life.

Marcellus Steiner has never stopped developing, searching, growing. His story demonstrates: turning points are not endpoints but thresholds to new possibilities. Life is a journey between worlds – between craft and art, between East and West, between letting go and new beginning.

This journey continues. In every brushstroke, in every layer of color, in every photographic composition, the engagement continues – with the visible and the invisible, with the transient and the enduring.

"Art leads me to myself; every encounter with it lets me awaken, live in this world."
— Marcellus Steiner