Soufiane Idrissi

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner in 2007

Soufiane Idrissi is among the leaders of the group of young Moroccan artists of the Post-Internet movement. Beginning in graphic art and computer science, in 2007 Idrissi founded, together with Mohammed Chrouro, the collective Radar, a historical movement in the Moroccan avant-garde, which transformed unusual images from the Internet into artworks, following the tradition of the ready-made.

Searching for a new type of painting in the digital era, and questioning the challenges posed by the use of these new media in the creation of art, Idrissi worked for two years with computer engineers to devise an algorithm in which every colour and every form are transcribed in a line of a computer programming. In this way, a khaki green colour is summarised into an online web program, and associated with another line of code which defines its form. By varying the colour formula in a very minimal way (for example by changing only one of the digits that make up a line of the code), the colour is transformed, not in a gradient of the initial colour, but with a different beige-brown colour, while its digital root is related to that of the initial colour. Because of this common root, the resulting image is extremely harmonious, eliciting instant approval from the viewer. At the crossroads between the virtual and the real, this abstract arrangement of forms and colours, created by artificial intelligence, is then transposed on canvas. After numerous experiments with supports and materials, including pastel, oil, acrylic on paper and oil on wood, Idrissi came to the medium of cellulose paint on HDF wood plate, obtained through a mixture of fibers and synthetic resin, as is the case of the present work.

Like the masters of American Abstraction before, Idrissi has created abstract paintings of geometric arrangements of colours and forms, starting from a strong, almost philosophical concept. Idrissi integrates in his works the dimension of the new artificial intelligence tools of the 21st century. Radically redefining the relationship between fine art and technology, Idrissi is paving a new path for contemporary painting. This young artist from Rabat, capital of the kingdom of Morocco, already spotted and collected by major international collectors, is undoubtedly promised a great future.

Text by Jean-Marc Decrop, CNES & CEDEA approved expert in Emerging Non-Western Contemporary Art.