Youssef Boubekeur: We Are One Family.
Hatchikian gallery presents the solo show We Are One Family by Youssef Boubekeur. Thirty works are staged for the artist’s first personal exhibition in Paris in the 3rd arrondissement.
The family is the heart of the exhibition's theme.
Youssef Boubekeur’s exhibition focuses on the concept of family. Through the anthropomorphic representation of felids and primates, the artist questions the millennial concept of family and the bonds that unite its members. It is fascinating to observe how Youssef Boubekeur infuses each subject of his works with a personality that is unique to them. This personality is materialized in the extremely detailed gazes. But also in the clothes that adorn each subject. Thus, as you walk through the exhibition, you will encounter families Clifford, Nelson, Ford, Denken and many others…
The importance of the gaze in the work of Youssef Boubekeur.
The artist’s work on the gaze is essential: the gaze opens a window onto the interiority of the character, suggesting the torment of the unconscious conflicts between the instinctual and the civilized. The viewer is summoned by the expressive power of the gaze, which leads him or her back to their own inner dialogue. The confrontation is unsettling: are we dealing with a predator or a protector? Humanity of the human being, humanity of the animal? The features in Youssef Boubekeur’s drawings seek to capture all the nuances of ambivalences, beyond the usual categories.
The BIC, a universal writing tool at the service of the work of Youssef Boubekeur.
With the most universal tool of writing, the Bic pen, Youssef Boubekeur draws the features of characters belonging to the same human archetype, who then engage in a gaze that is full of density, complexity and paradoxes. When referring to the medium he uses, Youssef Boubekeur presents it as a given. Since his earliest childhood, drawing with the BIC pen has been a source of pleasure. To create his works, Youssef Boubekeur works on Arches paper.
Art as a way of welcoming the other.
Man deprived of his way of life and his sociality, just as the captive animal can be deprived of its natural ecosystem, loses its bearings and its horizons. Youssef Boubekeur examines with the precision of his blue Bic pen how our senses are affected: loss of taste and smell: what do the gazes of our inner torment tell us? Which animal is dormant or awakening within us? Will the concern for the Other open itself to the paradoxical lessons that come from the animal world?
You can explore the virtual exhibition on this page and make an appointment at Art Loft to discover Youssef Boubekeur’s works in person.
Image gallery
