Only the Memories are New
Ryan Renshaw Gallery
February - March 2008

Marisa Purcell’s latest body of work, Only the memories are new represents an even further delve by the artist into unchartered realms of the psyche.
Instinctual and unexplained, the paintings invite the viewer to confront dreamlike worlds where inside meets outside and reality is constructed
from fragments of memory and time.

Floating, drifting, wandering, these strange and beautiful mindscapes offer neither root nor horizon. An ascending sense of gravity defies all familiar notions of perspective. Gentle, optimistic use of colour belies a powerful, seeping loneliness. The worlds are empty, quiet. As though holding their breath as they wait for us to enter.

Purcell’s ability to access such gutteral immediacy is what makes her work so confronting. This latest series of paintings, with all its intoxicating beauty is somehow like having your subconscious cracked open and spilled onto the canvas.

(written by Jayne Tuttle)