Until 25 April, the Nadar gallery in Casablanca is hosting a unique exhibition of the new collection of paintings and sculptures by Omar Berrada. Entitled "Murmuration", this exhibition, the opening of which will take place this very evening from 7 p.m., offers the fruit of the artist's journey into a singular universe populated by birds.
A rather particular world thus invests this exhibition space, which has already hosted renowned visual artists from Morocco and elsewhere.
Today, it welcomes an artist with a dual vocation, writing and the visual arts. The latter did not come from nothing, because Omar Berrada grew up while feeding on art with his uncle, an illuminator and calligrapher, who encouraged him to draw on cardboard, images of the street and the beings who inhabit it in elongated and distorted forms.
This same passion accompanied him during his adolescence alongside his drawing teacher, Abdelkebir Rabii, who introduced him to the visual arts and the handling of brushes. And this, while leaving a privileged place for literature. Two paths that took hold of his mind, allowing him to externalise, both through writing and the visual arts, his deepest dreams and reflections.
His feelings are thus spread on canvas and paper at first and later on metal in the form of sculptures. "Murmuration" (in English), that is to say "flight of starlings", perfectly reflects all the creations of this exhibition of birds fluttering in one direction then the other", explains the artist. And to add that to give more soul to his birds, "there will be, next to the paintings and sculptures, a sound installation of birds to experience this phenomenon as in reality".
It is a theme, like his previous ones, which constitutes for Omar Berrada a continuation of his writing where he spontaneously unveils his characters in their lived experience.
Moreover, image or writing mean almost the same thing for him. Even if painting outweighs writing for Omar Berrada, he managed to be nominated for the second Mamounia Literary Prize of Marrakech, with his first novel "L'Encensoir" (editions la Croisée des Chemins), as part of the International Publishing and Book Fair (SIEL).
Other writings followed, notably his latest novel, "Vol de goélands", presented at SIEL 2015. The French writer Jean-Pierre Millecam likes the naturalness with which he expresses himself in his stories.
"Omar writes much as he speaks. And as there is not the slightest vulgarity in his conversation, the subject, even when he tracks a vulgar subject, is never so. He depicts, with talent tinged with humour, the daily life of characters in great poverty. He narrates their ills with their words. A frank language without being indecent and therefore less heavy for the reader. A realistic description, a subtle vocabulary capturing with subtlety a picture that looks exactly like our society", notes Jean-Pierre Millecam in this regard.
Colourful images, as he creates them in his paintings and sculptures.
