About the Artist
After completing her AA in graphic design and BA in fine arts at LAU Beirut, Mireille headed to Paris where she obtained her Master in decorative painting. Since the year 2000 Mireille has been working with renowned Lebanese interior designers painting murals, ceilings and walls using different techniques and textures for both residential and commercial spaces.
In 2009 Mireille abandoned her decorative work to concentrate on her own creative art production, consisting mostly of painting on canvas where she deals with expressions of her nostalgia for the past using images from magazines and newspapers as well as photographs taken by the artist herself.
“In my works, I try to transform scattered images floating in my mind into an interesting work of art”, she said. It is her ability to convert imagination into something more real which lies at the basis of her art. It is her attempt of putting back together all those personal and nostalgic memories into an acceptable form like putting together a broken piece of pottery, knowing that however one tries there is no escape from the fact that traces of fractures will always remain. Mireille admires her past and cherishes what it contains and represents.
Reviews
Raffi Tokatlian / Artist, Sculpturer
I don’t want to compare your works to any other or find common features with other artists. I want to talk about you, your thoughts, your way of life, your craziness, your dissatisfaction, your crossing boundaries to reach on for more and to give more, your seek for perfection , your ups and down, your confusion.
I can see all that in your paintings, it’s the same old struggle of humanity as a whole and it’s similar to my simplicity and to my art. I always say: let the viewer read what he wants and what he sees. Never try to explain your paintings and art unless asked to, because of their depth a viewer will always see more than what you try to explain.
Mireille i love your work because it is linked to pure feelings and is coming from the heart of an artist, with great energy. Don’t jump in the river trying to go faster to whatever destination you fancy, as the current risks taking you to different places. Walk slowly , it is the safest way to reach desired places.
Mohammad El Rawas / Artist, Painter
Looking at the paintings of Mireille Merhej from a distance, one instantly recalls the works of Jacque de la Villegle, Mimmo Rotella and Raymond Haines among many artists who have adopted the iconic style of de-collage or ripped street posters. When we get closer to Merhej’s canvases however, we discover when scrutinizing their surface material that her images are in fact painstakingly painted in acrylic and are not simply collaged or de-collaged torn printed posters and pages of color magazines. This leads us to place her work into the realm of photo-realism and brings to mind-in particular- Malcolm Morley’s photo realistic paintings in the mid sixties which were drawn from mundane post cards of ships. Mireille’s work is not actually based on found images of torn street posters but on small collages, which she makes out of carefully chosen torn bits and pieces of pages from color magazines. Accordingly, the statement of Mireille’s work is not merely about the final visual outcome but also about the process of making them; this process underlines the differences between the (apparently) accidental act of tearing strips of paper to create an original collage on one hand and the act of carefully working out the blown up paintings take us into a journey across time and Pop culture’s: they mirror the worlds in the eye of artist who is inviting us to escape from the burden of our mundane and stressful environment and visit her Pandora’s box of la Dolce vita.
Antoine Bridi / Artist, Painter
Chacun de tes tableaux est un espace-temps inépuisable. L’observateur averti est invité à vivre ce monde virtuel. Il s’agit en fait d’une simulation expérimental qui ressemble à la découverte progressive du monde visible par un nouveau-né. En deux mots, il faudra envisager les oeuvres avec une conscience vierge et un regard neuf ! En défaut de quoi, il nous semblera fautivement avoir apprehender l’incompréhensible et avoir dompté l’insaisissable !