Radouan Zeghidour

Radouan Zeghidour's practice centres around the ideas of clandestine, mystery, legend, ruin, memory and ephemerality. His works hovers between reality and non-reality or marginal reality, ranging from hallucination to dream, often inspired by his underground activities at places extremely difficult to access for most people.

Driven by the urge to explore the web-like Paris subterranean networks including the extensions of the metro underground railways, catacomb, or other hidden secret passageways and places below and above ground, the young French artist creates ad-hoc structures with found objects, creates paintings with fire extinguishers filled with paints, or make imprints with resins or other mediums of abandoned trains and other objects, all in situ. The structures made on site are left there in the dark once completed and the artist's records of photography or videos are all the audience have to access these ultimate ephemeral creations, most likely to be destroyed eventually by any surveying officials. He subsequently incorporates these images into works in studio, imprinting them on metal sheets and other media.

The artist's nightly walk-about as well as his artistic creation are essentially lead by his quest to find and come to terms with himself, making his works deeply personal and heart-felt. He terms his oeuvres 'Romanticism Recaille' or "Scum Romanticism', highlighting the emotional and introvert aspects common to his practice and the early nineteenth century German art movement.

Zeghidour possesses a wide scope of styles, from brutal and violent especially when he works on site often with limited time frame, to sophisticated and subtle with suggestions of shapes made with light and shadows for works created in the studio, with images and concepts sourced from his nocturnal adventures and his another passion, reading.

Zeghidour works across media, including metal, latex, silicone, plaster, wax, paper, photography and video. He also investigates the potential of words and languages in the framework of visual art, engraving excerpts from novels or his own verses on metal, marble or plaster.

Zeghidour’s previous solo shows include ‘Evasion’, Kunstlerhaus Sootbörn, Hamburg in 2018, “Jian’ at Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix, 2017 and 'Hypogea', at the Galerie Catinca Tabacaru, New-York in 2016. They all question ideas of the hidden, the obscure, the forbidden, the ephemerality of things and the prevalence of the ruin or the fragment in relation to society and its many identities and constructed memories.

Recent group shows include: 64th edition of Salon de Montrouge, 2019 and 68th edition of Jeune Création 2018.

Education

2016 DNSAP Diplôme nationale supérieur d’art plastique, Ecole nationale supérieur des beaux-arts de Paris

2014 DNAP Diplôme nationale d’art plastique, Ecole nationale supérieur des beaux-arts de Paris

Solo Shows

2019 : 'Sainte Chapelle', galerie dohyanglee, Paris

2019 : ‘LXXV: Chants de Sirènes’, Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix, London

2018 : ‘Evasion’, Kunstlerhaus Sootbörn, Hamburg

2017 : ‘No Future Jellyfish’; Gaertnergasse, Vienna

2017 : ‘Jian’, Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix, London

2016 : ‘Hypogea’ Catinca Tabacaru, New York

Group Shows

2020 : 'Comme un parfum d'aventure/With a hint of adventure', The Lyon Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC Lyon)

2020 : 'En Etre', curated by Jeune Création, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Pantin

2019 : ’Salon de Montrouge', 64th edition, Montrouge

2018 : 'Jeune Création', 68th edition, Beaux-Arts de Paris

2017 : ’Nos ombres devant nous’, Fondation Ricard, Paris

2017 : ‘Felicita 17’, Beaux-Arts de Paris

2017 : ‘Là’, Eglise Saint-Joseph, Paris

2016 : ‘Explorers 2’, London Newcastle Project, London

2016 : ‘Explorers 1’, Loft 19, Galerie Suzanne Tarasiève, Paris

2015 : ‘Excelsior’, Eglise Saint-Joseph, Paris

Awards

2018 : 3 prizes awarded to selected artists among those who participate in the group exhibition ‘Jeune Création’: Prix Diamètre, Prix Lieux-communs and Prix les Mondes Parallèles

2017 : Prix de la photographie, Felicita

2014 : Prix Thaddaeus Ropac

Public Collection

Font d'art contemporain Paris