Mohamed Bennani
Born in Tetouan, Morocco.
Passed away in 2023
In 1958, Moa Bennani began attending the Tetouan School of Fine Arts and, before he was eighteen, left Morocco to study at the Beaux-Arts in Paris (1960-1964).
Anxious to pass on his artistic practice, Moa trained at the Centre Pédagogique Régional (CPR) on his return to Morocco and taught at the Ecole des Arts Appliqués in Rabat for many years.
In 1989, he obtained a grant from the French government and settled for three years at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.
Like his contemporaries, Moa Bennani is fascinated by primitive media: burlap, wood, and leather, which he tries to breathe new life into by twisting and disfiguring them. This relentlessness on the material is underpinned by a passionate relationship to the sensitive, to the colors of the ocean and the earth. His painting, based on the deflagrations of matter, is dominated by lyrical abstraction.
Moa Bennani's works, telluric and colorful, with a dense and mysterious matter, are similar to small windows giving access to new worlds. The subject is absolutely nothing for Moa Bennani, who does not establish any hierarchy between the objects he exploits in his painting. The subject of a painting can be a crack on a wall, rust on a heavy metal door, or simply a waste that decomposes with the wear and tear of time. Each of the artist's paintings has a story related to its genesis and this story is rooted in reality.
"I never start from nothing but from things seen." - Mohamed Bennani
In 2005, the artist represented Morocco at the Venice Biennale.
He is co-author of an art book, "Clair-Obscur", with the writer Tahar Benjelloun.
His works of Moa are widely exhibited both in Morocco and internationally. His paintings but also his immense frescoes are part of many public and private collections.
Theis biography is largely inspired by the work of Dounia Benqassem, Dictionary of Contemporary Artists of Morocco, Africarts Editions, 2010.