The Practice of Painting
Marie Zolamian
12/2024

When I paint, I do not work thematically.
I paint out of the urgency of daily life, out of a need to focus on the present and to feel immersed in the colorful and absorbing substance—in every sense of the word—that is the living, oily material of paint.
It is the paint itself that guides me, that draws me into a state of deep concentration.
Painting, for me, is a magical, intriguing, metaphysical world that transcends destruction to become pure creation.
Painting, as a direct and primary medium, is my way of expressing the difficult complexity of a world I cannot comprehend.
It responds to a profound feeling of urgency and hyper-vigilance—urgency both for me as a painter and as a form of direct dialogue with the viewer.

I associate the necessity of painting with attempts to understand the world around me, to survive it, and to be part of it. It connects me to life and to what surrounds me.
Imagination, creative force, and survival instinct build mental images and transform the difficulty of being into an unknown but still acceptable state.
Painting leads me to what is essential.
It is a serious game of hesitations, doubts, and reworkings—hallmarks of the painting process.

Thus, painting becomes a journey, a search, a path, a metaphor for the road—a road that takes shape over time, alongside the world in which it is drawn.
These are the imagined paths of my encounters, my readings, current events, my emotions, faced with a violent and dangerous reality.
I am constantly trying to transform this pessimistic perspective of reality through art.

After all, it is only in the City of Painting that I can find, all at once, the absolute, beauty, intelligence, sensitivity, poetry, complexity, peaceful confrontations, refuge, belonging, faith, and true answers.
A play of irregularities guides the journey of painting, letting me glimpse the invisible, the abstraction of the real—like a dream that announces reality in an abstract way, true reveries.
It is the construction of this intangible place that I try to access when I paint.

A reversal—or more often, a modification—of a certainty, a rule, a condition, a preconceived idea, a determination, a piece of knowledge, a choice, a decision, a place, a status, or a function, in order to see what happens then, in the uncertainty of the image.
I try to create a space where transformation occurs before it is realized.

The serious game of painting allows me to question colors and shapes, to untangle the threads of a constellation of images while losing my bearings.
The repetition of these changes is a struggle that gives birth to multiple forms—through chance, encounters, associations—but also leads to states of error, illusion, failure, imprecision, confusion.

I’m drawn to painting for its archaeological dimension, where it is not just the final image that matters, but the battles fought in a confined space that must yield pictorial solutions at all costs.
I realize that things are not necessarily what they seem, that every state is not a natural given but the result of historical processes that can and will change before disappearing.

Art reveals how things are outcomes of a process, and it uncovers what may be hidden beneath appearances—it transforms unreal elements into marvelous apparitions that do not yet belong to the world we live in.
When I paint, I try to find a space to enter.
I do not and cannot premeditate where I’m going.
Yet there is an inseparable link between the idea and the process.

The idea of painting, the idea of form, the choices and the decisions.
The process that allows them to materialize.
The result is a mass of (non-)symbolic apparitions that communicate without the mediation of intellect and represent the intelligible.

I prepare my own supports.
I coat raw linen canvas on wood panel with rabbit-skin glue, creating a rigid, durable, transportable, and absorbent surface that reflects a cold, luminous white preparation, inherited from the early days of painting (frescoes, icons, panels).

I mostly paint wet-on-wet—everything happens during the work session itself, requiring intense focus. I spend time swirling, exhausting both my mind and my brushes with direct, spontaneous, instinctive, rapid strokes, loaded with more or less diluted and mixed paint.
I pay close attention to what unfolds before my eyes in the moment—that is all that matters. I decide based on what I see, not on a sketch or a photograph.

Colors become forms, then images, and creatures appear. I manipulate them as colors to blur factual meaning, to transform them into an unknown path. The pictorial takes precedence over representational meaning—it’s like a ping-pong game, each element calls for the next.
A simultaneous narration emerges, where various episodes involving nature, humans, non-humans, half-human-animal figures recur in a nervous, miniaturist landscape that forms the appearance of colors. Gradually, things beneath that appearance reveal themselves and form a scene, reflecting a mental image taking shape.

More or less abstract spaces take form—they resemble scenes, stages, fictional, fantastical, dreamlike, unreal platforms or pieces of nature—approaching my interest in the invisible, the unspoken, the mysterious, the enigmatic, which suddenly come to life in my eyes.
I let them mature for weeks or months, depending on whether the new creature I’ve created continues to engage with me—if it’s clear, evident, recognizable, I redo actions; if the incomprehensible raises unanswered questions, keeps me in suspense, intrigues me, I let it go.
And so, they can be released outside my studio, into a chaotic and troubled world full of mystery itself.

Once I’ve stopped stirring them, the paintings become like occult and psychic images—the fruit of a ritual, a pictorial dialogue between the real, the symbolic, the enigmatic, and the imaginary.
They then appear as paintings—as creatures with an autonomous existence, existing in reality and no longer part of dreams or unreality.

The pictorial surface becomes, for me, a means of connecting to the visible world through the invisible.
The constant reworking of the same panel turns the painting into a layering of scenes or film sets—a visual archaeology of a palimpsest for a metamorphosis, an in-between state just before fulfillment, revealing the coexistence of layered stories in a moment that once was present.

Each painting requires long hours of work until it ceases to speak to me.
That is why I work on many paintings at once, each progressing over a different time span.
The operation resumes continuously over long hours and many days, during which I cut myself off from the outside world. Once those few days pass, I can step outside—and it is a relief.

As for subject matter.
It’s like going fishing without knowing if you’ll return with anything to eat, or what kind of fish you’ll catch if you’re lucky.

Charged with information and current events, historical moments, readings by artists, art history, images of the world, visions, encounters, memories—my sharpened perceptions enter the cave of the studio to process what I’ve absorbed, to recount it, and bear witness.

I internalize realities and transcribe them; painting thus becomes a way of reading the world I live in.
I let my memory, images, imagination, and unconscious drift—a current of consciousness.
Connections appear: divergences, inversions, changes to the rules of color and form from earlier layers.
Layers begin to confront each other—they are at first simple, then indescribable, unknown.

But what interests me most are those before which I feel intense and incomprehensible emotions—when the familiar becomes unfamiliar. The incomprehension of the intriguing thing requires time, and I let them mature before making new decisions.

I continue to work on paintings I’ve already begun, spending a lot of time looking and listening to them, to decide what I will keep, remove, change, or cover—with transparent or opaque paint.
If a hue is not accepted in one area, maybe it will be in another.
What do I want to enlarge or shrink, to brighten, etc.?
I must try—and only then evaluate if it works or not.

I must take the risk of breaking, destroying, covering—perhaps, perhaps to arrive at an acceptable answer.

Titles
Since around 2016, I’ve been titling some of my paintings with words and expressions taken from a vocabulary list I try to learn and retain.
It’s a list I build over time from readings, conversations, films, documentaries, and series.
Only after completing the painting, when I need to title it, do I consult the list and ask myself if any signals from the painting or the words might connect.
It’s a mnemonic tool to help me learn.

My Work as a Whole
As stated in the opening sentence of the text about my artistic approach:

“My work is a sequence of visual fragments that, over time, form an experimental documentary of a fictional ethnology.”

I see my work as a concentration of semantic memory that produces a periodic visual and pictorial memory.
A timeline with vibrations, oscillations, heartbeats, seismographies.

This timeline is inseparable from the space-time dimension of memory.
Memories and recollections fade, erode, vanish, become repressed.
The more time passes, the more I lose memory, and the practice of art takes on a utilitarian role: that of storing my experiences, inscribing furrows into memory, making them visible and lasting.

Little by little, my knowledge disappears, and forgetting regains its vital function: allowing me to learn again and to be creative in doing it anew.
Once the imprint is made, I can move on.

This gives the timeline a fragmented or discontinuous appearance.

1975 
Belgian, born in Beirut (Lebanon)
Lives and works in Belgium

Solo shows

2025 Outside nature (with Witold Vandenbroeck), Whitehouse gallery, Brussels, Be
2024 SA MUE, Bombon projects Gallery, Barcelone, Es
2023 Some movements in the tree of life, UZ Jette, Brussels, Be
2022 Droomland, Jester, Genk, Be
Permanent integration,Welkom - Bienvenue - Welcome - Willkommen, KMSKA, Antwerp, Be
2020 Arco Madrid (with Aglaia Konrad), Galerie Nadja Vilenne, Madrid, Es
2019 Untitled, Galerie Nadja Vilenne, Liège, Be
2018 Bienvenue, Mu-Zee, Ostende, Be
2017 Paroles à Boire, Musée le Carroi, Chinon, Fr
2016 Memento, Galerie Nadja Vilenne, Liège, Be
2015 Ne pas confondre la réalité des images, City Hall of Chênée, Liège, Be
2014 Permanent integration,Sans Titre (Lignes de vie), First WW commemorations, Flémalle, Be
2013 I am a man now, what do you want more?, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, De
2012 The disoriented, Nadja Vilenne Gallery, Liège, Be2011Untitled, La Châtaigneraie, Flémalle, Be
2010 Aux Arts etc., 16 artists intervene in 16 town halls Liège, curator J. Charlier, Flémalle, Be
The empty house, Flux Gallery, Liège, Be
2009 Liège-NY, NY-Liège, Mamac, Liège, Be
2008 One minute left - one minute right, Hedah, Maastricht, Nl
we everywhere, Placard à Balais, Liège, Be
2007 A hole in the rain, installation in a glasshouse, Warringer Platz, Dusseldorf, De
Anonymous album, Placard à Balais in the Festival of Liège, Be
2006 M’installer, Cultural Center of Marchin, Be
2005 Volcanoes as metaphor, Nadja Vilenne Gallery, Liège, Be

Group shows

2024 Full house collection, Mu.ZEE, Ostende, Be
Enghien Biennial-Miroirs 5/Précieux, Enghien, Be
Enlaire by Bombon projects & Prats Nogueras Blanchard, Girona, Es
Le monde a changé, Rossicontemporary, Brussels, Be
Rappaccini's Daughter, Yoko Uhoda Gallery, Liège, Be
2023 Tageldimde/Middlegate 2023, Cultuurcentrum de Werft, Geel, Be
Focus 2023, Collection artistique Province de Liège, Be
Private views, La Boverie, Liège, Be
Peindre la couleur, Le regard des collectionneurs, La Châtaigneraie, Flémalle, Be
STAYIN' ALIVE. Discover the Collections, BPS22, Charleroi, Be
La Châtaigneraie 1979-2023, La Châtaigneraie, Flémalle, Be
2021 Regenerate, Wiels, Brussels, Be
2019 On the road, Galerie Nadja Vilenne, Liège, Be
Les Mesures du monde, Tourinnes-la-Grosse, Be
2018 Le Jardin du Paradoxe, Musée de la Vie wallonne, Liège, Be
2017 Résonances, Galerie Nadja Vilenne, Liège, Be
La leçon d’anatomie, Musée La Boverie, Liège, Be
en Piste!, with Galerie Nadja Vilenne, Musée La Boverie, Liège, Be
2016 What else?, Galerie Nadja Vilenne, Liège, Be
Open Studio, Air Antwerp, Anvers, Be
2015Grandchildren, Depo, Istanbul, Tr
De burgemeester van Veurne, EMERGENTgalerie, Veurne, Be
Voix de Femmes, Caserne Fonck, Liège, Be
2014 Listen your eyes, Contemporary art Biennal of Dakar, Sn
When I were small... in 2013, Arts at school, Grivegnée, Be
The interior castle, Biennal of Jehay, Be
Addenda, Hôpital Notre Dame à la Rose, Lessines, Be
2013 Here is always somewhere else, Château de Oud Rekem, Lanaken, Be
Repeat/repeat, Nadja Vilenne Gallery, Liège, Be
Home stories, Villa 102, Frankfurt on the Main, De
Echo, croxhapox, Ghent, Be
2012Qalandiya International, Birzeit & Abwein, Palestine
The man who..., Mamac, Liège, Be
Irreverence, Apollonia, Strasbourg, Fr
2011 NowBelgiumNow, LLS 387, Antwerp, Be
A corps perdu, FRAC Bourgogne show, Châteauneuf-en-Auxois, Dijon, Fr
Irreverence, Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, Paris, Fr
Ars Justitia, Justice Hall, Liège, Be
2010 Département des Coqs, collaboration Nadja Vilenne Gallery/CC Turnhout, Be
Art Brussels 2010, Nadja Vilenne Gallery, Bruxelles, Be
2009 Contemporary art biennal 2009, Parallel events, Istanbul, Tr
Jeux de la Francophonie 2009, Beirut, Lb
Penser la résistance, Biennal of contemporary art of Senones, Fr
Le(s) moi(s) de Lizène, MuHKA, Antwerp, Be
Brainbox 2, croxhapox, Ghent, Be
2008 FIAC 2008, Nadja Vilenne Gallery, Paris, Fr
Quartiers d’hiver 08, Espace Nord, Liège, Be
Intercultural armenian-belgian dialogue, Yerevan, Am
2007 crox project n°218, croxhapox, Ghent, Be
Concours Godecharle, Fine Arts Academy of Brussels, Be
2006 Où vous sentez-vous chez vous ?, Dusseldorf, De

Education

2008
Aggregation in Visual Arts, ENSAV La Cambre, Brussels, Be
2005
License in Visual Arts, Fine Arts Academy of Liège, Be
1999
Bachelor in Marketing, Institut supérieur Sainte-Marie, Liège, Be

Collections

Private collections + Institutions:- BPS22, Charleroi, Be
- MACS Grand Hornu, Mons, Be
- Mu-Zee, Ostende, Be
- Cera Foundation, M Museum, Leuven, Be
- Flemish Community Collection
- National Bank of Belgium, Be
- Ministery of Foreign Affairs, Be
- La Boverie museum, Liège, Be
- Space Collection, Liège, Be
- Province of Liège, Be
- MUMC, Maastricht, Nl
- EF Education First, CH & GB