.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Executed in 1963, Ahmed Cherkaoui’s Clair de Lune (Moonlight) is a distinctive work exploring abstraction through a pattern of blotting circles and gridlines in a vibrant and subdued palette. Taking inspiration from Islamic calligraphy and Amazigh culture, this painting abstracts and fuses various sign systems through a focus on form, colour, and its contrasts.
Considered as one of the most prominent modernist artists from North Africa, Cherkaoui is best known for rendering a range of symbols and forms inspired by Moroccan folk art and cultural heritage. His visual language was informed by the calligraphy he learned in the local Koranic school and his mother’s Amazigh tattoos, which he encountered in his childhood. Later, he was influenced by notable European modernist figures like Paul Klee and Roger Bissière. Following his studies in graphics at the École des Metiers d’Art de Paris from 1956 to 1959, Cherkaoui spent a year at Warsaw’s Academy of Fine Arts in 1961 and held his first solo exhibition at the Atelier de Lucienne Thalheimer in Paris. Using various surface materials, Cherkaoui's focus on texture, colour, line, and form references fundamental compositions of various sign systems. Espousing the role of spontaneity in the artist’s creative process, this artwork could be viewed as a representation of cosmic energy emerging out of the crush of primary colours. Creating a sombre yet dramatic impact, the gestural signage, burlap texture, and interlocking forms in this painting are a highly emotional, evocative, and almost ominous reminder of temporality, evolution, and mysticism.
Considered as one of the most prominent modernist artists from North Africa, Cherkaoui is best known for rendering a range of symbols and forms inspired by Moroccan folk art and cultural heritage. His visual language was informed by the calligraphy he learned in the local Koranic school and his mother’s Amazigh tattoos, which he encountered in his childhood. Later, he was influenced by notable European modernist figures like Paul Klee and Roger Bissière. Following his studies in graphics at the École des Metiers d’Art de Paris from 1956 to 1959, Cherkaoui spent a year at Warsaw’s Academy of Fine Arts in 1961 and held his first solo exhibition at the Atelier de Lucienne Thalheimer in Paris. Using various surface materials, Cherkaoui's focus on texture, colour, line, and form references fundamental compositions of various sign systems. Espousing the role of spontaneity in the artist’s creative process, this artwork could be viewed as a representation of cosmic energy emerging out of the crush of primary colours. Creating a sombre yet dramatic impact, the gestural signage, burlap texture, and interlocking forms in this painting are a highly emotional, evocative, and almost ominous reminder of temporality, evolution, and mysticism.