HABIB KIBARI

The painting of Habib Kibari, an artist born in Beni Mellal in 1971 and a former laureate of the School of Fine Arts of Tetouan, has been the subject of a substantial number of chronicles and appreciations during his exhibitions, notably those devoted to the Tuaregs (Senegal, Mali, Niger), in 2002.

Kibari remains fascinated by the South, an exponential and mysterious South, which he renders in his works with great sensitivity and delicacy. "He knows how to combine powerful gestures and a superb touch of creativity", wrote an African newspaper at the time.

In search of a space that is both original and original, Kibari multiplies drawings and sketches (portraits, scenes of life), capturing on the fly the detail that hits the mark and infusing his characters with the luminous vibrations that make them exist and live. When the artist paints the Tuaregs, for example, writes a Moroccan critic, a real osmosis takes place between the observer and the subject observed; an inexpressible link is created.
The work must recall this link…

Moreover, Kibari does not usually draw on a white canvas. “White shocks the eye,” he explains, “the canvas does not give the same sensation.” This is why he prefers to use kraft paper, which has the color of the earth and gives this impression of an old photo, like a nostalgia for the past…

A man of travel, Habib Kibari has chosen free figuration, that is to say a way of representing reality according to a process of veiling/unveiling, leaving the revelation of forms to the effects of light and movement.

At the same time, the artist develops a certain idea of ??the unfinished, "which he works like a conception", a plastic argument that is the only one capable in his eyes of interpreting the world he paints: at once immense, changing, rooted and picturesque

This notion of the unfinished, which naturally leaves one unsatisfied, comes from the parallel quest for a form of spirituality, which Kibari arouses in his works through the play of color, because he knows it to be inherent in the spirit of the places and the human conditions he describes. The chromatic atmosphere comes out fully charged and strongly gives the emotion...

Kibari also explains this "voluntary" incompleteness as being a lack of a social nature: a kind of frustration, perhaps still one of the enigmas of life. "The human being," he says, "is always unfinished!..."

The fact is that Habib Kibari's painting never ceases to deepen its thematic and aesthetic research, as well as to reflect on the new possibilities of its means. The artist's wanderings and his desire to recharge his batteries attest to his desire to move towards new horizons, continually developing his impressions and observations which have now become documents.

DIPLOMAS AND PRIZES

1994: Graduated from the School of Fine Arts of Tetouan, Morocco.
1995: 2nd Prize in the Young Moroccan Painting Competition: Rotary Club of Tangier, Morocco.
2004: Stay at the Cité des arts Paris, France.

MAJOR GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2007: Exhibition of Contemporary Moroccan Art, Le Mans, France.
1999: Matisse Art Gallery, Marrakech, Morocco.
1997: Bâb doukkala National Gallery, Marrakech, Morocco.
1995: International Exhibition Organized by the Rotary Club, Tangier, Morocco Tangier _ Ceuta _ Gibraltar _ Algeciras.
1994: Casa Nasir de Zafar, Granada, Spain.
1992: Artistic Marathon; National School of Fine Arts, Tetouan, Morocco.

MAIN SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2010: Medina Art Gallery, Tangier, Morocco.
2007: Recolitos Gallery, Madrid, Spain.
2006: Londot Gallery, Algarve, Portugal.
2005: Fine Arts Gallery, Paris, France.
2004: Fine Arts Gallery, Paris, France.
2004: Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France.
2004: Catania, Italy.
2002: Mamounia Hotel, Marrakech, Morocco.
2002: Lawrence Arnott Gallery, Tangier, Morocco.
2001: Agora Gallery, Dakar, Senegal.
2001: Elephant Gallery, Ibiza, Spain.
2000: Galerie Baggherra, St Tropez, France.
1999: Banco Centrale Hispano, Granada, Spain.