MATTER OF TIME Project : “Souffles”
The idea of Nidhal Chamekh’s work was born from the observation of the movement of graphite powder that spreads over his drawing boards. The artist offers a 2:25 silent video in which he reveals the beginnings of his landscape drawings.
The work is entirely composed of a sequence shot in which the artist places his camera in a bird’s eye view facing the surface of the paper. It is on this close shot that the advent of the graphite trace unfolds.
The video shows the movement of these graphite seeds that dot the white sheet of paper. These seeds slowly grey the surface. Thus, the appearance of landscapes in time is done in a subtle way. Later, their disappearance is delicately done through the lightness of the artist’s breaths that is insinuated several times. By erasing landscapes, these very breaths create many others. Between the appearance and disappearance of these ephemeral landscapes, time is imperceptible. The volatility of the material is combined with the notion of time.
Through this video, does the infra-thin passage of matter and time refer us back to the vital breaths that generate the life of every living being?
ARTFORMS
Video installation
CURATORIAL CHOICE by Imen Bahri
EXHIBITIONS Selection
2019 | Tunis.tn | DREAMCITY – Festival of Art in the City
2018 | Lund.se | SKISSERNAS MUSEUM – Museum of Artistic Process and Public Art
2018 | Jeddah.ae | JEDDAH ARTS
2017 | Milan.it | FM Center for Contemporary Art
2017 | Tunis.tn | DREAMCITY – Festival of Art in the City
2014 | Dakar.sg | DAK’ART – Biennal of Contemporary Art
Since 2012 | Regular exhibition activity, mainly in Europe and North-Africa.
CV
FORMATION
Paris.fr | Panthéon La Sorbonne | PhD researcher in Fine Arts and Art Sciences
Paris.fr | Panthéon La Sorbonne | MA in Fine Arts and Art Sciences
Tunis.tn | School of Fine Arts (ISBAT). Graduated in Fine Arts
BIO
Lives in Paris.fr and Tunis.tn.
1985 Born in Dahami.tn
LINKS
nidhal-chamekh.com
Selma Feriani Gallery: Nidhal Chamekh
fr.wikipedia.com: Nidhal Chamekh
TEXTS
Emma Chupp: Interview with Nidahl Chamekh. Universes in Universe. August 2015. Retrieved on 12 September 2019.
Clotilde Scordia: Nidhal Chamekh, iconographe du fragment. 2016. Retrieved 12 September 2019.