In her latest solo show presented at the Espace Delacroix, the painter alternates between charcoal and oil on canvas, in a fascinating face-to-face with art history.
In a work in progress, of which she shows us a reproduction during the opening of her exhibition, Amina Rezki depicts miniature figures emerging as if by magic from the hearth of a fireplace. There are explicit references to iconic works of art history, from Chagall, from Chagall to Picasso, and including Magritte. For the past fifteen years, since returning to live part of the year in Tangier, which she had left as a child, the artist has forged a solid reputation as a painter with a universe oscillating between figurative expressionism and a subtle surrealist spirit. It is therefore not surprising that she now confronts, freer than ever, an art history in which she has now found her rightful place.
Bringing distant realities together
The discerning viewer will recognise in her charcoal drawings reminiscences of historical works: a monstrous character abducting an indiscernible figure evokes the motif of the Rape of the Sabine Women, the nymph Daphne, or the goddess Europa. The full-length portrait of a character whose facial features are seized with trembling and who bears the head of another man, evokes the numerous scenes of beheading that dot art history, starting with that of John the Baptist. The back of a Herculean character, pierced by banderillas, recalls the world of Picasso. The violence that runs through our world is omnipresent in these works, in which a surrealist spirit always persists, amusing itself by bringing together realities that are always distant.
While this spirit predominates in the oils on canvas, it is not absent from the charcoal drawings, in which a face transforms into a target or the head of a character wearing a sign on which the word "War" is written metamorphoses into a wolf. A canvas, seemingly more peaceful, shows a mother preparing her little daughter to go into the forest that their living room overlooks. As in a scene straight out of a Buñuel film, she suggests that wolves may be lurking nearby. Dynamic, the exhibition's hanging succeeds in arousing emotions in us that oscillate between anxiety and a smile, as in this series of new portraits in which a very Baconian expressiveness rubs shoulders with a feeling of nostalgia typical of family albums. Great art, certainly!
Olivier Rachet
Solo show by Amina Rezki, Espace Delacroix, Tangier, until 23 June 2025.
The article Amina Rezki back in Tangier first appeared on Diptyk Magazine.