Marie Rosen’s approach is essentially based on preoccupations with the body, the family climate and the atmosphere of the home, and the memory and temporality of these. It’s a question of objects, of everyday facts that are grafted onto the mental conception that each person has of his or her own body, in a kind of search for “protection”. The everyday objects that recur in his paintings are chosen for this reason: they are the ones we know best. Speaking of personal events, these images painted on wood are situated somewhere in the narrative. They speak of events that are quick in time, yet diffuse. Fervor, history, everyday life. It is the reorganization of memory that leads to the creation of images. Present-day and imaginary parentheses of feelings, little facts, little dreams, alluding to ex-votos, “my images come like prayers, wishes”. Without getting into the game of intellectualized art, his painting is closer to popular art, accessible to all, hence the correspondence with votive images. This reference should not be understood in a religious sense, but only from an aesthetic point of view. The search for precious, small-format objects, reminiscent of ancient illuminations and ex-votos, should rather be seen as a revaluation of the act of painting, in a way reviving the craft tradition. From this stems her desire for a coherent project guided by the rigor and seriousness of her personal approach. On the other hand, narration appears secondary: concentrated in a striking moment frozen in space and time, it constitutes the meeting of unusual and heterogeneous elements, of which the background on which they sometimes seem to float is already a part. This meeting creates a network of meanings, whether invented or lived moments, modulating known elements towards pictorial scenes intelligible to all. These elements emerge as a function of external parameters, and sometimes change a little on their own, until they acquire a kind of autonomy. Perception is immediate and requires no explanation. In this sense, no interpretation is (in-)correct. Who are these characters, what are they doing? The solitude that surrounds them seems to freeze them in a context that nevertheless appears narrative, a kind of para-world of projection, in an image specific to the medium. Jennifer Beauloye