Dossier - Sidi El Karchi
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Sidi El Karchi
1975, Sittard - Maastricht

Already at his graduation in 2001, El Karchi drew attention to himself, with painted and drawn portraits of himself, his mother, his brother, and mentor and painter Fons Haagmans. El Karchi only makes portraits of himself and the people in his immediate surroundings. An important source of inspiration for these early works is the portrait photography in Morocco with which El Karchi became familiar during holidays in his parents’ country of origin.
El Karchi’s colourful works are characterised by their graphic appearance and uninhibited mix of styles with both abstract and hyper-realistic elements. Emphatically depicted motifs such as a hat or book function as attributes and lend a symbolic character to the true-to-life portraits. For instance, the actual theme of a portrait done in pale hues of a woman with a poppy appears to be ‘earthly mortality’. A self-portrait of the artist dressed in blue overalls, holding a palette, can be read as a reflection on the position and role of the artist in this society.
Bearing in mind the active Moroccan portrait tradition, you could say that El Karchi claims a similar vital role in the social domain for his painting. He is concerned both with ‘staying close to home’ regarding choice of subject and with using the pictorial possibilities and symbolic nature of his medium to the full. This makes El Karchi an exceptional representative of a new generation of painters. They distance themselves from the old modernist ideals; from autonomy and purity on the one hand and from post-modern questioning of rationality on the other. Very strategically, the present generation links up with the tradition of a bourgeois genre of old, thus creating alternative conditions within which the medium of painting can flourish.
Three works by El Karchi have been acquired for the collection since 2002.
 
Changing Moods, 2003

Images
Collection Bonnefantenmuseum
Changing Moods, 2003
Blue Window; portret van Azza El Karchi, 2002
Maroccan Sunshine; portret van Fons Haagmans, 2002
Selfportrait after Beckmann, 2006