Rafik El Kamel (1944-2021) born and lived in Tunisia.
Rafik El Kamel’s paintings are characterised through compositions which he set up as an exchange between space and light. Throughout his career, he reflected an inner reality, one that was invisible to the naked eye, assembled shapes are recognisable throughout his work. By painting graphic forms in clusters, he presented a dynamic world, powerful yet fragile where the equilibrium seems firmly occupied by an underground chaos that’s unremittingly ready to claim back its rights. Through this approach, he was able to describe life in an abstract form, by eliminating traces of nostalgia, he expressed a certain solitude, where the artist faced a necessary urge to reveal.
He graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Tunis in 1966. He continued his artistic training at the School of Decorative Arts in Paris. Between 1967 and 971, he discovered the refined expression of painting during his stay in Paris. Upon his return to Tunis, he taught at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
Since 1966 Rafik El Kamel’s work has been widely shown at international institutions, including the annual exhibitions of L’Ecole de Tunis, at the Salon de Mai in Paris, at the Biennale of young artists in Paris in 1977 and in 2002 at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris in “Perspective on contemporary Arab art”. In 1984, he was awarded the first prize from the city of Tunis and the first prize from the annual exhibition of contemporary art in Tunis.