Marc Eliany was born in the village of Beni Mella, Morocco in 1948. He has remained very attached to his native country, which he left in 1961 for Israel, and regularly returns there. During his years of undergraduate studies in Jerusalem, he also spent some time in Canada. Seduced by the beauty and the peaceful atmosphere of the country, he decided to settle in Ottawa in 1976. He continued his studies there and earned a doctorate in sociology. Hired by the United Nations, he lived for brief periods in California, Austria and France, and was called on to travel in the East and in South America.

Essentially self-taught, this painter has nevertheless attended courses at the Tel Hay College of Art in Israel and the Ottawa School of Art. The influences on his art are many. He admires the spontaneity of Moroccan painters André Elbaz, Maxime BenHaim and Shaibia, the composition of paintings by Klee and Chagall, the use of colours by painters in the Group of Seven, the lines and shapes of Amerindian painting. Marc Eliany uses Moroccan pigments that he mixes with oil or, more rarely, with acrylic, to create his canvases. He also works with coloured paper pulp and collages of wallpaper, techniques that allow him to produce highly textured surfaces.

My work, he says, reflects the constant return to the places of my childhood and the search for my roots. He paints Morocco, not figuratively, but by recapturing its most visible landmarks in a manner that transforms his memory of it. Additionally, his choice of Moroccan colours and symbols pays tribute to the tradition of tolerance towards strangers which exists in that country.

He has participated in many exhibitions in Canada, the United States and Europe. His works are included in several public and private collections.