Djabril Boukhenaissi, 2024. Photo by Fabrice Gousset. Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim and the artist
Mariane Ibrahim is pleased to announce the representation of Djabril Boukhenaïssi.
In his paintings, Djabril Boukhenaïssi explores the delicate threshold between reality and fiction in the construction of memory. He relies exclusively on sketches of past experiences to create his works, deliberately distancing himself from the immediacy of the photographic process that inundates our contemporary life.
In 2023, Djabril Boukhenaïssi won the first edition of the Lee Ufan Arles & GUERLAIN Art & Environment Prize, for which he developed a project around the gradual disappearance of the night and, with it, the “loss of the reserve of poetic images” that it offers us, a theme that has become central in his work. His approach to nocturnal poetics, human and animal figures, both real and semi-fantastical, are revealed in intimate paintings and engravings that respond to each other. These include the repeated use of violet to represent night, the recurring motif of the Phalene, a kind of nocturnal moth, and the representation of the Alyscamps, one of the biggest and better-preserved Roman necropolises on the outskirts of Arles, as the setting for all the compositions.
Pastel is crucial to Boukhenaïssi’s technique as its porous surface, when applied over layers of oil paint, creates delicate and vibrant texture. He captures images where figures become partially abstract as they blend with the background, as if falling into the surreal depths of a dream.
The nineteenth century’s influence on his work spans art, music, and philosophy, and extends to important processes that, he laments, have fallen into disuse in recent decades. This is particularly true of engraving, a discipline almost completely banished from arts education, which he vindicates, not as an accessory to painting but in its formal entirety.
The artist’s first solo exhibition in the gallery will take place in Chicago in fall of 2025. Recent paintings will be exhibited in a group exhibition in the gallery’s Mexico City location in September 2024.
The gallery will represent Djabril Boukhenaïssi in collaboration Galerie Sator (Paris/ Romainville)
June 18, 2024
