M'barek Bouhchichi

This work has been kindly donated by the artist

M’barek Bouhchichi (b. 1975, Morocco) is an artist whose work moves from the transcription of research into hollow and full spaces, from colour to the gesture that composes. His beginnings as an abstract painter anticipate his current work. His works propose a dual reading that rests on that of the artist which is personal and a reading that is guided by thoughts that are open to being shared and interpreted. The thematic thread of his works is an individual voice that enables a re-writing of the self. It is a thought process unfolding in acts that the artist signifies with comings and goings between the idea and the experience of the work.  

Terre (earth) is an installation-accumulation of several thousand small heads manually produced out of the same mould. Beyond their different hues in clay, these faces bear no specifics markers. Through an almost absurd process of infinite repetition, like an insistent demand or impassioned prayer, Bouhchichi produces the bare, miniaturized image of an egalitarian humanity. But the huddled population of equals remains inaccessible under glass. This work was inspired by the words of a potter Bouhchichi met in Tunisia: "we are all made of earth". Out of this origin story the artist has created a horizon as palpable as it is out of reach.