Dalila Dalléas Bouzar, 1974, Oran, Algeria
Rencontre Series, 2015.
Statement:
Self-portrait, child portrait, hotel rooms and architecture drawings, child sculpture made of reinforced concrete, warrior penguins made of plaster, colors – green, umber, raw umber, burnt sienna, Prussian blue, cereleum, ultramarine, titanium white, zinc white, pink, flesh pink…
My painting is a quest for flesh pink. The pink of the skin, of the flesh. Im’ obsessed with pink.
Pink makes me think of cannibalism. Eating human flesh. Eating yourself. The taboo.
Since I started painting, I paint self-portraits, as if it were a statement, as if I had to convince myself that I exist.
Algerian, born from a construction worker father who immigrated to France, I used to admire art from afar. Painting, a supreme and sacred art to my eyes, has particularly always been taboo to me.
Through painting, I free myself. I free myself of my personal history and of the contemporary history of the world which dictates that an African woman artist coming from European ex-colonies must do new media art and talk about topical issues, and above all must not express herself through painting.
2.
Drawing is my foundation, painting is my main field, sculpture is its natural extension.
Before devoting myself to art, I studied biology. My first artistic act was to break with the scientific vision of the world. For that, I trekked in the Falkland Islands observing penguins. I lived this adventure as a manifesto of my art as a way to think the world.
After graduating from the Art school in Paris, I taught painting through workshops I organized for women in Algeria, where woman expression and freedom are often restrained. Meanwhile, my painting “scène d’amour” exhibited in Världskulturmuseet of Göteborg was censored after pressure from local muslim community. These two experiences made me realize the important impact art can have on the world.
Berlin, where I lived several years, inspired me through its history and memorials. I developed a reflection on the memory of the wars in Algeria. A book, “Algeria, Year 0”, exhibitions/discussions in Europe and Africa, were the results of this work.
(texts from website artist).