Marie Pascal 

Marie Pascal studied in a school of graphic art in Paris. What she gained from her training there remains useful in her painting today. She also always keeps in mind interior paintings by Vermeer, Buillard and Bonnard. Hopper’s urban scenes are a significant influence too. Her works demonstrate a similar concern for the relationship of human beings in their everyday environment, and their images capture a moment of contemplation that is beyond time and space. She also considers the works of Rembrandt, the Impressionists, Redon, Cremonini, the Bay Area Figurative Art, and has, of course, always been influenced by the work of her father, Jean-Pierre Pascal.

Most of the images in this body of work depict public places such as cafes, buildings, or enclosed gardens with one or several figures. The activity on the streets is indirectly present; signals and passers-by are seen through reflections in a window, a mirror or on a wall. She creates an effect of stopped time and meditation without telling a story.

She is interested in creating tension between interior and exterior, intimacy and street life, and the individual and anonymous crowd. Pascal uses photographs to create a composite of several locations in order to create an entirely new image. Although the completion of a painting takes her many days or months, she also spends a good deal of time on planning, creating sketches and drawings before beginning to paint a piece. Her paintings have high contrast and a limited range of colors. She shows the contrast between rigorous architectural structure and the softer rendering of figures and reflections.