Abderrazak Sahli

17 May - 15 September 2022

  • Abderrazak Sahli was born in 1941 in Hammamet. He graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Tunis in 1969, continued his studies in fine arts at the University of Paris VIII, and lived in France until 1987. In 1985, he joined the "Docks", nomadic artists with whom he produced vocal and visual performances. He participated in the 1971 Paris Biennial and held solo exhibitions in Tunisia, France, Germany, Japan and England.

  • Sahli's approach to words is quite particular in its phonetic dimension to its graphic and pictorial dimension. He transcends words...

    Untitled, 1999, Acrylic on burlap, 140h x 108w cm, Unique

    Sahli's approach to words is quite particular in its phonetic dimension to its graphic and pictorial dimension. He transcends words into a formal language based on sound, the sensory ratio of rhythms and silences.   

    He translates this sonority into forms by inversion to the cognitive process in a series of colored tracings and completely abstract repetitive forms by a technique of detour of the action and the icon.

  • His work is anchored in the use of accessible materials, often for commercial purposes, such as plant fiber canvases or...

    Untitled, 1999, Acrylic on burlap, 157h x 115w cm, Unique

    His work is anchored in the use of accessible materials, often for commercial purposes, such as plant fiber canvases or burlap.  He explores the potential of textures and what the weft could propose as a sense of reading, mastering the physical properties and playing with them in order to intensify the color, vary its density or its transparency. He takes advantage of the accidents of these supports to work and integrate them as elements in their own.  

  • Quotes on the work of Abderrazak Sahli from Rachida Triki The Art of the Counterpoint: 

    "Actually, all the art of Abderrazek Sahli is his ability to play with paradoxes of the picture in a creative aesthetic way” 

    "The proliferation of picturesque elements between transperency and superimposition, livens up the flatness of the work and sets up a sensorial reception mode, with his alternation of bright colours and neutral tones, the surface of the paintings are no more than pure sensations.”