Marco is a DC based artist who was born in New Jersey to Egyptian parents and grew up on Staten Island, a borough of New York City. Marco’s work is represented in dozens of private collections around the world. Marco holds a Masters degree in Political Science (M.A.) and a Bachelor's degree (B.A.) in Middle Eastern Politics from Rutgers University. While at university Marco minored in Art History and took private classes studying under a well-known contemporary artist. ​ While studying art privately in New York City, Marco was drawn to painting figures and portraits. He immersed himself in the life stories of his models and his sitters and through his art he tells their story as well as his own. Influenced by the French impressionists, John Singer Sargent, and inspired by Jack Vettriano story telling masterpieces, Marco explores contemporary culture often depicting , Eastern, more specifically Egyptian, as well as Western cultural themes in his work. ​ Marco's work has always varied in style and approach, from loose painterly strokes with expressive colors to more subtle muted colors to achieve realism in the classical academic style. Marco also experiments with light and shadow, his work known for contrasted atmospheric narratives. As for his portrait commissions, Marco's theory is that the painting style he employs to paint for a particular sitter should be executed in an appropriate and unique fashion for them. This is why in some of his works the paint explodes all over the canvas in a picture of one person, yet at the same time whilst painting a separate sitter he employs a more restrained palette and stroke. Marco has never been the type of artist that paints in one way. He continues to grow by experimenting with new palettes, methods, and linear lines of perspective. Marco often dabbles with different mediums by experimenting with those creative tools to see what he can achieve. Marco works in traditional oils, as well as acrylic's. Recently he has swapped the brush and paints for the stylus and iPad, working on paintings digitally to see what type of expression can be created with the new technology.