There is a part of the world in Nihal Martli’s paintings. In fact, even if the artist seems focusing on the representation of figures, mostly female, the roles and characters she convokes, the transformations she stages question alternately the art, the status of women and also the meaning of life. For painting is to speak about the world, the artist hides behind her brushes just to venture a strong and limpid speech, at times enigmatic, at times lyric, often referential but always poetic.

Yet the artist doesn’t neglect the technique, on the contrary she seems to take an infinite pleasure in experimenting with it, to play with the texture, tint or glazing, wonderfully handling the thickness of the paint which becomes translucent. The streams of color that she masters turn into a source of light or a fine veil on a militant femininity.

Renaud Buénerd