Suzanne Marcelle

The idea of landscape defines my work.

Getting across spaces, sensory experiences with the elements, the feelings’ twists and turns we are being led to are the common threads of my research.

The delicateness of living things -plants, rocks, lands, sea, rivers, streams, and invisible particles – moves me.

The violence of men facing the elements touches me and I paint to show my gratitude, to echo this suffering that resonates in me.

The mountains, the sea, the rivers haunt the imaginary places inspired by my strolls and my visions, which are enhanced by the southern light.

I have run away from the gloom, the lack of space. Nature in the south is powerful, it terrifies me sometimes, impresses me, haunts me, bewitches me, I contemplate it without ever getting weary.

Suzanne Marcelle, June 2022

Suzanne Marcelle – to connect the viewer to the canvas’s space – uses a “natural” fulcrum as a mere pretext, whether it is animal or plant, usually a photocopy, surrounded with enraged brushes, torn pieces of paper, mixed inks. This fulcrum quickly gives way to abstraction.

Compulsive gestures oppose our weaknesses, our qualities, our inner landscapes to the original serenity. Then, one has to take a step back to better understand the overall consistency of the composition: from abstraction to figuration, our tensions are being pacified, the painting stands as a promise of recovery.

Dufay Bonnet Gallery, Paris.

Mystery inhabits Suzanne Marcelle’s work.

The exhibition showcased at the Lambert gallery, Secret Flow, takes the title of the last series of paintings – the idea of a sudden arising as well as the space of a landscape in the making. Just like a deposit, the fragmented space of the diptychs, opens up to a nebula that is light but dense, aerial but abyssal.

Working with pencils, oil and collages, the works question the very sources of creation, the roar, and the flows going through us.

The shape-shifting work of the artist opposes the wide and colourful paintings to the black and white series Paradise Island, or the mise en abyme of that very same image revisits a ghostly space or sea and mountain that seem to blend into each other.

Finally, the installation “Rideau” (Curtain), large aerial pieces of paper like futuristic laces, adorns the wall, which comes to disappear.

Mystery inhabits Suzanne Marcelle’s work.

Valérie Lambert Gallery, Bruxelles

The series is displayed as a large panoramic shot; the viewers face abstract convergence lines that invite them to walk through an unreal yet present floating landscape.

Like Basho and his 111 haiku poems, the installation uses the poetic codes with an optimal use of resources where graphite and ink brighten up the collages.

Each piece makes sense in its uniqueness but as a whole they become a landscape, a floating horizon.

Thierry Tanières, La Poissonnerie Gallery, Marseille