At the border between memories and dreams, Rachel Marsil plunges us into an intimate and colorful universe in which interior scenes, moments of reunion, subtle latency of the pose before the click of the photo are entangles. A set of supple silhouettes inhabit the space of the canvases, they seem to be immersed in contemplative waiting. Their gaze is turned towards us peacefully, their faces are hypnotic and their features, similar from one character to another remain unique. They seem to look beyond the visible into a world of the subconscious in which we take part.
Those who know the artist will perhaps recognise her face in the characters. The canvas is like a mirror in which to explore one’s identity. Originally, Rachel Marsil dives into her family photographs; each scene is an opportunity to revisit a memory, sometimes even to reinvent it. For the artist, painting is a narrative of a larger personal story where history with a capital H, intimate history and fantasized vision mix. Faced with the flaws of our memory, dreams and projections are powerful poetic tools. Everything in the paintings contributes to plunge us into a state in-between.
Some elements nevertheless keep us from the risk of absolute onirism; in particular the objects that the artist adds to her paintings. Rachel Marsil represents them in the same way as the characters, making them protagonists of the visual narrative in their own right. Finally, she adds a semantic charge that is far too pressing to be invented: the objects carry a sensitive and memorial weight. They crystallise as many moments as emotions experienced by the artist and at the same time send us back into our own intimate sphere contemplating our own Proust’s madeleine and our own forgetfulness.