Rachid Ben Ali Exhibition
Witzenhausen Gallery
This event has ended.
The paintings and drawings by the European artist Rachid Ben Ali ‘explode’. His energy and drive literally splatter off the canvas. His images are confrontational, mirroring the violence and chaos of the time we live in: the aggression, the fear, the despair, the sorrow and the injustice.
Rachid has been drawing since he was three years old. Drawing is his language and his medium. Later on he also began to paint. In his work, we see our world reflected as a universe in which limbs, heads and phalluses complete with sperm and blood fly through the air. All of this has been painted and drawn in a raw and direct pictorial language. Sometimes his work resembles a comic strip, occasionally supplemented with text. Yet it is immediately clear that this is not about 'style', but about speed and emotion. He sometimes emphasises the 'horror' aspect of his work by letting the paint drip down the canvas.
In 2000, Queen Beatrix selected him for her exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and in 2003 he won the award for most-promising young artist at the KunstRai. In addition, he had a solo exhibition in het Domein in Sittard in 2003, entitled ‘Bloothed’. This exhibition led to protests in the City Council. Parents were advised not to bring their children to the exhibition. In 2005 he had a much-talked-about exhibition in the Cobra Museum in Amstelveen.
Media
Schedule
from January 15, 2009 to February 14, 2009
Opening Reception on 2009-01-15 from 18:00 to 20:00