Over the past three months, we have had the pleasure of hosting the early career artist Sophia Bsiri at our Atelier, Artist Residency Program.
Following her studies in Mandarin, Sophia undertook, in 2018, private courses in academic drawing with the artist Ahmed Maaleb. She started experimenting with classical constructions of lines and shadows. She then drove her interest in the expression of the matter she used to draw, in its volumetry and its relation to the space.
Her practice is concerned with matter, materiality, gesture, and form in its primary function translated into a secondary one, that of modular sculpture and installation.
As she started experimenting in the atelier, her research was focused primarily on barbed wire and its origins. Coming from an organic and natural root, that took over the years the symbol of oppression of massive security in the streets.
The sharp prickles are made of dozens of interlocking fibres, which increases the resistance and the difficulty of destroying the stems.
She fragmented the wire into pieces, destructured it, and cancelled its repulsive nature, which served as a barrier but once untied, it takes on a free form. These hundred fragmented pieces once unified, find their natural origin, forming roots that spread out on the wall like a climbing plant.

With an affinity for sharp and bulky materials, she turns nails, the sharp tool intended to hang o to carry a form and that it became itself subject. As if it’s a dot or line on a drawing.
She integrates it into the fabric. By dint of using it, repeating it on a porous canvas she multiplies its weight, giving shape to volumetry that associates itself with the movement that it decides.
She works the nail as a weaver works the thread of a repetitive gesture to integrate the canvas one by one as if she is sewing a fabric to end up with a massive and thorny fabric which in the movement generates a form, each time random and a sound of tickling metal. The nail is denatured from its form. It adopts the function of a thread or a line.
She is also well rooted in the alternative scene giving a way into her practice through materiality and subtle selfgenerated sound that translate through the raw and fine tools. On the other hand, Bsiri tends to reflect on analog photagraphy, the density of colours, lights and shadows through her paintings which combine both charcoal drawing and spray paint.
Bsiri navigates between these classical assets by combining them with her new research, explores the potential of the materiality and omits in defining raw tools for her work.

Special thanks to

Sophia Bsiri              for her trust and the exchange     
Haithem Toumi                  for handling the artworks     
Rania Hentati                  for the communication   
Insaf Mejri                    for the production follow-up
Selma Feriani            for supporting the Atelier         
 

An architect by background, Myriame Dachraoui is a self-taught artist, that I got to know through her seamless navigation of the digital realm and the traditional canvas to craft scenes that delve deep into dreamscapes and the labyrinth of the subconscious mind, all while embracing a palette of bold and vibrant colours.

During her residency, Dachraoui embarked on an exploration of techniques, of colour palette between going back and forth on a drawing construction.

She drew inspiration from her memories, as well as images that had been imparted to her through her dreams. Her journey even led her to dig into a grimoire in search of postcards and elements that had left a remarkable mark on her as a child – postcards her father had brought back from his travels to Russia during his academic journey.

This pursuit ignited a curiosity within her, primarily concerning the construction of miniatures, the intricacies of color palettes, and their spatial arrangement. She unearthed certain elements from this treasure quest, such as a turquoise blue that she expanded into an entire palette within her canvases, creating an illusion of retro-illumination in the middle of an enchanted forest.
Another standout feature is a miniature nestled at the core of her compositions. The verticality in her works is, in part, influenced by Japanese prints, which, like the postcards, predominantly embark on a reading from a vertical perspective, guided by a succession of elements.

Dachraoui leads the character’s gaze in the middle of her canvas to the hidden corners of her compositions. These hidden corners often take the perception into lush, enigmatic spaces, where the character’s view disappears among the intricate interplay of foliage and shadows. We are given a taste of the character’s contemplative or perhaps, introspective moments off the canvas, as they become one with the natural world that surrounds them.
In other instances, the perspective offers a bird’s-eye gaze, creating a sense of elevated view. It invites the viewer to appreciate the vastness of the landscape, the intricate patterns of fields and waters, and the seemingly infinite horizon.

The discerning eye of an architect distinguishes her work, allowing her to construct layers of narrative, from foreground to background. This open studio experience is thought of as a voyage into Dachraoui’s imagination. With each brushstroke and experimentation, she directs us through her gaze towards a dream, an element, or a narrative that unfolds with layers and vibrations of colour, at times dark and distant, and others, vivid and lucid.
It’s a journey through the distinguished territories of the mind, a testament to the artist’s ingenuity and her ability to take us on an odyssey through the realms of dreams and colour.

Salma Kossemtini, Tunis, July 2023