"I
paint what I know"
A veteran of nearly twenty years aboard merchant ships and ocean-going salvage tugs, Marek Sarba paints what he knows. During a seagoing career which required him to spend more than three-hundred days a year at sea he witnessed the ocean milieu as few maritime artist ever have.
And having studied and painted maritime subjects during this span and since, he today possesses insight which goes unrivaled and which moves him to paint from the pit of his stomach, to viscerally recount in oil on canvas the solitude, terror and overwhelming grace of the sea as he personally experienced it.
Sarba's talent to capture the sea has received high praise from critics and fellow marine artists alike." Few marine artists have really been able to capture the wildness of the sea. It takes years of experience to paint it with true emotion," said noted artist Ray Ellis, "Marek Sarba takes his place among the finest, in the tradition of Thomas Rose Miles, Thomas Somerscales, Montague Dawson, Frederick Waugh, Frank Vining Smith and Anton Otto Fisher."
Sarba's keen knowledge of vessels and their operations is evidenced in his unique ability to recreate the power and drama of ships on the high seas. His work continually receives nods of approval from the most experienced ship masters to salty seagoing veterans. His treatment of passenger vessels prompted renown ocean liner expert and author William H. Miller to comment "You are certainly one of the world's finest contemporary maritime artists."
Sarba has been called the Joseph Conrad of marine art, and like Conrad, his material and motif usually turn on a single powerful moment that pits man against nature.
Marek Sarba's exhibitions abroad have been held in Norway, Denmark, Poland and Germany. Here in America, to which he immigrated from Poland with his family in 1981, his work has been displayed at Mystic Seaport's Maritime Gallery; the Historical Society of Maryland: the Mariner's Museum in Newport News, Virginia; the American Merchant Marine Museum, Kings Point, New York; the Great Lakes Historical Society, Vermilion, Ohio, to name a few.
His work has been highlighted in numerous publications and his paintings can be found in many fine art collections, from those of industry leaders to Members of Congress.