Anton Marrast (Russian, b. 1983) is a Barcelona-based illustrator and digital artist whose work moves between imagined, surreal worlds and closely observed everyday reality.,,He describes his style as “psychedelic surrealism” and works across pens, markers, and digital tools, creating characters who move through intriguing, evocative narratives.,
Marrast has drawn since childhoodand, by his own account, most of his pictures begin with a single image he stares at until an idea emerges, rather than the reverse.His project Ex Cyclopedia began with an image of two cyclopes conceived as a bonded pair, symbolizing connection and complementarity, and grew into a nonlinear, ongoing fictional universe loosely inspired by Greek mythology and blending industrial, science-fiction, and rural imagery.In another series, Slow Story, Marrast tells the love story between two young cyclopes using minimal, defined lines in only black and grey.In Core/Relate, Marrast turned to the real locations he inhabits, treating overlooked street corners and industrial landmarks as living archives of collective memory.
Marrast also works as one half of PLRL, a duo with the artist Mannay producing collaborative work about memecoin culture, including the piece Memetica (2023).Women recur as central figures across his solo work, which he has described as a personification of human emotion.His illustrations have appeared in Playboy, GQ, and The New Republic.He has shown work in Barcelona at the solo exhibitions “Eating Ghosts” (2017, Galeria Balaguer) and “Filling The Gap” (2014, Mitte),and illustrated stories by Gabriel García Márquez.He also exhibited NFT-based work in the group exhibitions “NFT NYC” (2024) and “NFT Liverpool” (2022),and released 1/1 pieces through Foundation as part of the series Inner Space.
