In 2009 Mireille abandoned her decorative work to concentrate on her own creative art production, consisting mostly of painting on canvas where she deals with expressions of her nostalgia using images from magazines and newspapers as well as photographs taken by the artist herself.

“Looking” at the paintings of Mireille Merhej from a distance, one instantly recalls the works of Jacque de la Villegle, Mimmo Rotella and Raymond Haines among the many artists who have adopted the iconic style of de-collage or ripped street posters. When we get closer to Merhej’s canvases however, we discover when scrutinizing their surface material that her images are in fact painstakingly painted in acrylic and are not simply collaged or de-collaged torn printed posters and pages of color magazines. This leads us to place her work into the realm of photo-realism and brings to mind in particular-Malcolm Morley’s photo realistic paintings in the mid-sixties which were drawn from mundane post cards of ships.