ABDERRAHIM YAMOU Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1959 -

The orientation of Yamou work is in line with an inspiration that we could appreciate African roots: Yamou is the first painter of land whose colors, ocher especially in its variations many are the very foundation of the act of painting. If the "land of brown earth" has often been celebrated in literature, he found a painter in Yamou exalting in their immemorial times, the weight of the clay, the aridity of its southern lands. Strong presence in these paintings, the spirit of a place, a ground on which have only passing men.

In 1995 arise on the canvases of Yamou, from the depths of memory that would be said evacuated history and waves of splendor and blood, realistic enough to be recognizable animal shapes behind the stripes, the graphs that scratch the Web. Goats, rams, oryx, gazelles ... everything is an antediluvian beasts together, sometimes allusive (see crossed out crossed out mouths gagged his animals) always picked up in the tension of his movement. Zero sentimentality in this approach: there is austerity in Yamou; of height, in the concentrated gesture claw canvas. As morality, art knows no progress: cave paintings of prehistoric rock carvings of the Atlas and elsewhere are at the outset masterful. With Yamou, the art of painting seems to return to its origins: it was brute force, the austerity of the great ancestors. This artist is unclassifiable - if somewhere near the Magdalenians.

This will, from 1998-1999, in other forms, plant this time that will thrive in the work Yamou (painting and sculpture). Leaves, branches bent to the ground or pouring out in obscure germination; forests that glow in the dark harmony ... The colors are warm and deep; sizes, varied - but the mystery of life, in its most humble forms, and its immediate questions is always suggested. This is a painting that, in its texture, and by the representations it gives birth, can not be ignored. A thoughtful painting, sincere, aware of its effects, which wonders in bringing us to ask questions of the origin and fate.

Yamou tent as well, and successful, the challenge to paint night landscapes: from the shadows grew in his painting, its colors muted and surprise more than one connoisseur of Morocco, where the light is so strong. But this shadow also from the fire: painting Yamou in his bias very contemporary with a free representation, focuses the tension of life, raw, in his desire without memory expansion, and expression .

Large oil blocks and slender face shapes and muted colors around them. Other works prefer light shades: greige, almost white, they see them back in the shade - which does not clear so far. Yamou painting is a world of secret power; a living world, fiery, which invites contemplation, and meditation.