Near the canvases, brushes, tubes of paint and other tools fill Farah Atassi’s studio: art history books, architecture magazines and exhibition catalogues. On her worktable, dozens of cut-out images are meticulously arranged, classified and annotated to prepare the paintings to come. Starting from a photograph in order to arrive at a painting is the first stage of Farah Atassi’s work. The artist carries out long periods of research that often lead her to the European avant-gardes of the first decades of the twentieth century.

Immersing herself in the history of architecture, painting and design, Farah Atassi carefully selects images that will allow her to construct her interiors, as this is truly a kind of construction game. She draws pencil lines to place the objects that will later haunt the paintings, then applies a precise grid of masking tape to ensure the systematic repetition of motifs, which she removes only at the very end, leaving a few traces of adhesive behind.

The time has now come to paint. Farah Atassi produces large-format works depicting interiors. Seeping walls, uninhabited spaces, a few rickety pieces of furniture, tiles blackened by dirt, a dilapidated setting, a few traces of past human presence. An end-of-game atmosphere, with the threat of ruin hanging over everything.