The exhibition “Archipels d’encre” presented today at GHAYA gallery writes itself in the continuity of lmed Jemaiel’s art work. lt echoes his latest solo exhibition “Maculée conception” shown in 2016. The opportunity to show new work, never shown before, a body of paintings that links his history as a pointer to his singular way of painting. We find the erasures, the traces and the streams that already amazed the public in 2014, those pictural elements he uses to dress big squared surfaces. lmed Jemaiel is back with a determining exhibition, shown in gallery at the right moment, marking a new turning point in his career.
The spectator doesn’t face a chronological hanging, more a logical esthe[1]tic sequence going from minimalist diptychs to grand solitary canvases. We discover, as we wander, his addiction to signs, /ines and fluxes that take different directions. « Thought like splashes that stain, islands and archipelagos », the traces left enable you to enter in the artist’s particulor universe. For him, the signs he uses are always escorted with a specific vocabulary and definition. We do not talk of calligraphy but of a writing with no language. lt doesn’t ref er to anything exterior, but speaks of time, of the artist and the world’s volatile thoughts. To lmed, every exhibition enterprise, every reflection around his paintings, ail masters spread out on a canvas is « an unfinished project ». And it is with chose new archipelagos that he wishes to suspend time.
Here, it is not the question of identically repeating a motif. Rather we observe indefmite stains, minuscule, sometimes microscopie, spoils of point that recover the raw jute. Ali around, the brush’s outline is there, imbedded in the painter’s practice, perceptible on the weft. ln his paintings, lmed Jemaiel would rather leave the essence on the side, to later give it al/ the importance that the canvas reveals. E/sewhere, the material is laid on the surface and exists a/one. ln this exhibition, canvas, motif and surface end up by becoming on/y one.
Adélaïde Comby
