Visual artist Isabelle RocheMars explores the notion of invisible realities, a recurring theme in her work. In her earlier series Reliquaries, she created sculptural boxes containing "relics"—vegetal or mineral objects collected from specific locations during her travels.
Fascinated by coccolithophores—phytoplanktonic algae related to diatoms—she used electron microscopy to capture their intricate beauty. Inspired by these images, she created a series titled Microscopic Reliquaries, featuring imagined hybrids of these microscopic organisms.
The exoskeletons surrounding their cells resemble tiny boxes, echoing her earlier reliquary work. Each “microscopic box” contains golden cells, due to their pigmentation.
To create these works, she prepares her own paint using ocean sediments composed entirely of coccoliths (the exoskeletons of coccolithophores), mixed with an acrylic binder.
She thus paints using the mineral remains of these marine organisms. The organic aspect of the cell is represented using gold, and the black background evokes a vast other dimension—perhaps the infinitely large.
There is something wondrous, she says, in seeking out forms that, though invisible, already exist.