Rim Slaoui (aka HACEL) is a multidisciplinary artist who loves experimenting with different techniques to illustrate — in the words of Mark Rothko — "basic human emotions". Her art practice seeks to abstract reality and reduce it into a liminal space for the psyche.

Her photographs alternate between colourful, abstracted close-ups of urban elements, and deserted semi-urban spaces that owe their eerie character to nature's fluctuating moods... and maybe a light leak in the camera. They are an ode to the solitary mind's obsessive internal monologues, at once quiet and dynamic.

Before she was a visual artist, she wrote — and has done so for as long as she can remember. She sees text-based art as a natural process in her effort to recode the world into her own language & understand it better.

By combining mediums, she multiplies the threads of narration and layers the storytelling into a complex and multisensory process.

As she explores different approaches to mixed media art, she isn't afraid to let her creative trials and errors show through in the final product.

She obtained her B.F.A. at the University of Ottawa, Canada.

She currently resides in Toronto, Canada.