A Spiritual and Political Journey

The universe of Maïmouna Guerresi is unique, surprising and evocative, simultaneously ancient and resolutely contemporary. Her works are immediately enchanting for their beauty, strength and balance. 

 

Maïmouna Guerresi’s universe is as much the result of the alchemy of different cultural and religious influences as of the fusion of different artistic languages. Tied to both Italy and Senegal, western culture and Sufi philosophy, her art reflects a double culture, double belonging and, above all, the search for balance between two worlds. This doubleness, the central axis around which turns her existence as woman, mother and artist, is expressed through images that are sometimes mirror-like, sometimes complementary. Sufi and Christian iconography, eastern and western symbolism, past and present, rites and rituals, reinterpreted and revised with a creativity that seems to renew itself following the stations of an esoteric path, are at the origin of Maïmouna Guerresi’s harmonious universe.

 

Excerpt from a piece by writer and curator Laura Serani, “Tables, rites and rituals”