Radouan Zeghidour :
LXXV Chants de Sirènes

About the exhibition

The works of the emerging artist are deeply rooted in the idea of travelling, the desire to travel, and to travel to somewhere unknown into an abyss from where there may not be a way to return. Zeghidour explores deep into the night, often illicitly, locations uncharted in the maps for the unadventurous, as if in search of making act of transgression or in search of himself. The drive for these nocturnal quests is essentially existential, leading him to delve into the past civilisations real and imagined and their ruins, all conjured up in the underworld of the city after hours when all the mortals and their activities are effaced into oblivion.

The installations for the current exhibition offer us a glimpse of this complex universe that is somewhere between physical and metaphysical. 'Jardin Secret', a work representing a gate to the world beyond, is a large semi-transparent panel with three sections supported by metal chassis. The middle section features plaster bas-relief of elegant Classical figures, below which is a photo of an industrial, gigantic and rusty machinery found somewhere underground Paris, printed on an equally industrial metal sheet. The two images are surrounded by subtle, almost invisible, poetic shades of flowers created by emboss of the finely-woven metal mesh, gracefully celebrating the improbable but perfectly harmonised match of the two fundamentally incompatible worlds, idealised image of the past on one hand, and brutal reality of the society we live in on the other. The two spheres with properties far removed from each other merge and form a seamless whole -- and the emotional integrality that Zeghidour infuse to the work makes such blend and the resulting cosmos entirely convincing.

The oeuvre's nod to the sombre state of being may be inspired by the novels such as 'Journey to the End of the Night' of Louis-Ferdinand Céline, 'Demons' of Dostoevsky, or the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, all of which could be described as accounts of dark or tenebrous. Nonetheless, the world of Radouan Zeghidour is not that of a despair or nihilism, but a highly emotional and personal take of life tangible and intangible, lined with a sense of pursuit for something to look up to through self-reflection. The young artist's oeuvre exude hope and anticipation however fragile they may be. In this context his works resonate with Romanticism as the artist rightly claims, and they indeed incarnate a Romantic view of the 21st Century urban society. It also leads us to believe that his very personal voyages in the dark of night, unconsciously, are driven by the quest for ideal and self realisation.

Radouan Zeghidour

Born in 1989. Lives and works in Paris.

Dnsap (Diplôme national supérieur d'arts plastiques), Beaux-arts de Paris, 2016

Dnap (Diplôme national d'arts plastiques), Beaux-arts de Paris, 201

Solo exhibitions include: 'Evasion' Künstlerhaus Sootbörn, Hamburg, 2018, 'Jian' Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix, London, 2017, 'Hypogea' Catinca Tabacaru, New York, 2016. Group exhibitions include: '64ème Salon de Montrouge', Montrouge, 2019, 'Jeune Création 68ème edition', Paris, 2018, 'Nos ombres devant nous', Fondation Ricard, Paris, 2017, 'Felicità 17', Beaux-Art de Paris, 2017, 'Explorer 2', London Newcastle Project, London, 2016, 'Explorer 1', Galerie Suzanne Tarasiève, Paris

Awards include: Prix de la photographie Felicità, 2017, Prix Thaddaeus Ropac, 2014.