If at first glance, Nadia Merzoug's work reveals the influences of the Abstract Expressionists, a second glance reveals the extent to which, during her apprenticeship and her studies, the artist was able to make her own the techniques so particular to this movement.
At the crossroads of abstract composition and the figurative world, Nadia Merzoug's paintings demonstrate just as strongly the legacy of Hans Hofmann and his empirical theory of colour, as her control of the colour strata, the field structure of artists of the Colourfield Painting movement such as Clyfford Still and Mark Rothko.
But the quality and originality of Nadia Merzoug's paintings are only revealed at a third glance, that of the Woman. The genesis of the artist's work can be found here. In this handful of women painters of this movement, who fought to take their place in an artistic world largely dominated by men. As in Helen Frankenthaler and her infinite shades of colour, in the vivid gestures and power of Joan Mitchell's paintings, in the torments of Ethel Schwabacher's, or those of Anita de Caro.
This is, beyond a look at the pictorial work, the real message of Nadia Merzoug: politics, the place of the woman artist in our society. A militant message for more representativeness, visibility and equality. Nadia Merzoug, through her synthesis of the best of the abstract expressionists, men and women, thus presents in her paintings a strong and contemporary message to any person aspiring to autonomy, freedom and independence.
His work is now being rewarded by numerous exhibitions and engagements in Switzerland. In 2017, a New York gallery will host her first solo exhibition in the very heart of the district where the women painters representing this artistic movement lived, renewing their message that Nadia Merzoug has made her own with conviction and originality.
