70mg of Lies (Extended Release)
70mg of Lies (Extended Release) is part of the Happy Never After series, which explores the ways people adapt to the pressures of modern life through humor, irony, and familiar cultural icons. Inspired by Pinocchio, the painting transforms the character's growing nose into a 70 mg extended-release capsule, replacing the classic symbol of lying with a contemporary symbol of coping. Here, the lie is no longer simply something we tell others. It becomes something we consume, normalize, and depend on in order to keep functioning. The capsule serves as a metaphor for the invisible supports, routines, and narratives that help us navigate expectations, productivity, and emotional survival. Executed in acrylic on canvas with bold colors and pop imagery, 70mg of Lies (Extended Release) balances playfulness with social commentary, inviting viewers to reflect on the stories we tell ourselves, and the mechanisms we rely on, to make modern life feel manageable.
Muriel Elmaleh
Muriel Elmaleh is a contemporary artist whose work moves between abstract expression, dark pop imagery, and emotionally charged symbolism. Working primarily with acrylic on canvas, she explores themes of identity, nostalgia, emotional tension, and modern psychological survival through color, gesture, distortion, and contrast. Her practice balances spontaneity with restraint — shifting between dense, immersive compositions and quieter minimalist works influenced by abstract expressionism and musical structure. Across both abstract and figurative pieces, familiar imagery is often reinterpreted through darker emotional undertones, transforming childhood icons, cultural references, and symbolic forms into reflections on performance, dependency, exhaustion, and transformation. Influenced in part by her childhood in Ivory Coast, Elmaleh’s work also carries traces of memory, cultural storytelling, and emotional inheritance, sometimes expressed through bold palettes, simplified forms, and African-inspired visual language. Self-taught and instinct-driven, Elmaleh approaches painting as an intuitive and physical act — guided by rhythm, emotion, and the tension between surface and what lies beneath it.
Muriel Elmaleh is a contemporary artist whose work moves between abstract expression, dark pop imagery, and emotionally charged symbolism. Working primarily with acrylic on canvas, she explores themes of identity, nostalgia, emotional tension, and modern psychological survival through color, gesture, distortion, and contrast. Her practice balances spontaneity with restraint — shifting between dense, immersive compositions and quieter minimalist works influenced by abstract expressionism and musical structure. Across both abstract and figurative pieces, familiar imagery is often reinterpreted through darker emotional undertones, transforming childhood icons, cultural references, and symbolic forms into reflections on performance, dependency, exhaustion, and transformation. Influenced in part by her childhood in Ivory Coast, Elmaleh’s work also carries traces of memory, cultural storytelling, and emotional inheritance, sometimes expressed through bold palettes, simplified forms, and African-inspired visual language. Self-taught and instinct-driven, Elmaleh approaches painting as an intuitive and physical act — guided by rhythm, emotion, and the tension between surface and what lies beneath it.
