The opening of the exhibition “The Balance of Time” by the painter, Ilham Laraki Omari, took place on Friday evening at the Contemporary Art Gallery Mohamed Drissi in Tangier.
This exhibition, which will continue until July 14, shows a series of unpublished works created by this talented artist, including her main work “La balance du temps”, which is an oil painting on canvas, where a measuring system is placed.
Surprisingly, the side that has the smallest element inscribed with “A Blink” weighs more heavily than the side that has multiple components like months, years, days, and centuries.
All the elements (Centuries, months,…) are made with cubes which recall constructions, luxuriance and material, unlike the opposite side which reflects simplicity, the essential, the immaterial and the spiritual. In a statement to MAP and its 24-hour news channel M24, Ms. Laraki Omari pointed out that she mainly works with oil paint with mixed media, noting that she also does sculpture on wood and other materials, as well as interactive installations.
“It is especially in moments of intense spirituality that I am most inspired. I contemplate at all times and in each place the greatness of the one Creator, and each divine creation becomes a subject of inspiration”, a- she said.
Sculptures, paintings with counter-rotating clock mechanisms, weavings and interactive installations, and recently the introduction of digital in painting, works that suggest the sound of time. Intriguing works, which raise a reflection about “Time”. Ilham combines these particles and scraps, like fragments of atoms that she mixes and disentangles with an imprint that remains unique to her, the whole thing is dominated by a light that has characterized the artist’s touch since her beginnings more than 20 years.
“Ilham’s work expresses organic time in its fluctuating manifestations and evolving metamorphoses. The memory of the future, perceived in its subjective plenitude, merges past, present and future, a duration irreducible to “the measure of movement, according to before and after” (Aristotle)”, noted the sociologist Mustapha Saha, quoted in the catalog of the exhibition. Often referred to as a painter of time, Ilham continues in his plastic reflection around time. An approach that aroused the interest first of visitors, but also of art lovers and critics.
The artistic progression of the artist was manifested through different phases, passing from the techniques of realism and pure figurative to a semi-figurative period, to finally lead to an exploration of the abstract, in particular through his series of paintings. oil on canvas entitled “Incandescence”, which was noticed and selected for the Salon d’Automne de Paris in 2013.