Slimen Elkamel
- A window opened, 2011, Transfer on paper, 98x70 cm
- 24 seconds , 2011, Transfer on paper, 62x50 cm
- Pause 02, 2012, Transfer on paper, 100x70 cm
- La place jaune, 2015, The Yellow square, Mixed media on canvas, 180x226.5 cm
- Nowhere, 2015, Mixed media on canvas, 179x179 cm
- We were waiting, 2016, Mixed media on canvas, 195x102cm
- Adam the solitary, 2016, Mixed media on canvas, 180x190 cm
- Dissemination, 2016, Mixed media on canvas, 160x195 cm
- Breads and flies, 2016, Mixed media on canvas, 190x180 cm
- Face to Face, 2016, Mixed media on wood panel, 48x38 cm
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Biography
Slimen Elkamel is a young visual artist and an art critic. He participated in numerous group exhibitions and held a solo exhibition in 2011. Elkamel was an art resident at the Living Arts Center at Rades in 2010 and paid multiple artistic and research visits to Paris, Algeria, and Bahrain. He currently teaches at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts of Sousse.
Television watches us more than we watch it. The image is deeply rooted within us as a permanent material. Through this notion, the aesthetic constitution of this project is based on focusing on the image and its visual rationalization through an approach that renders it a primary material in though, composition, and development. Such an approach does not consider the image flat and of a single dimensional meaning. An image has depth, possessing a tangible effect of the past and a core to build the future.
This iconophiliac use of the image presents a contradiction to the iconoclastic tendencies that stems from the commitment of the practice to social and political dimensions. Working with images is akin to interacting with lived reality. The relation of the body with everyday consumable objects is contingent upon the degree of necessary sensory mindfulness that represents the world in human terms. Such is the beginning of this project that is open towards its social and communicative parameters, virtually and in reality, and to all visual and auditory communicative channels.
Eating, dressing, walking, sleeping, dreaming… All of these are moments where objects and images contribute, fueled by imagination. The body is haunted by images, and the painting is a multiple spaces where the criticial, comical, tragic, and poetic overlap. The painting is a crossroads of approaches towards mental and physical images. It is a democratic spaces of difference, a meeting space to debate, discuss, and interact. Our images lie in objects. We are in the image. We are images. Reflection is truth. Shadow is not an illusion, the image does not deceive, practice is an awareness of reality and its visual, audible, and virtual representations.
Exhibitions
EDUCATION
2015 Managed the painting studio/workshop at the Centre des arts vivants de Rades
2013 Art residency in Paris
2013 Assistant at the Institut Supérieur des Beaux-Arts de Sousse
2008-13 Essay publication in different newspapers, publications and art catalogues
2011 Teaching Visual Arts (High-school)
2010 Started a PHD thesis at the Institut Supérieur des Beaux-Arts of Tunis
2010 Assistant at the Institut Supérieur des Arts et Métiers of Tataouine
2009 Master in Techniques of Science and Art
2008 Residency at the Centre des Arts Vivants of Rades, Tunis
2007 Master in Visual Arts, specialising in Painting
EXHIBITIONS
2016 Yesterday is Tomorrow’s memory: a group show of work from North Africa, Elmarsa gallery, Dubai, UAE
2015 Group exhibition SMAP art organised by Union of Plastic Arts
2015 Group exhibition Talan
2015 Group exhibition at the National Library of Tunis
2012 Participated in workshops at the Centre des Arts vivants of Radés “L’imaginaire du quotidien”
2012 Scenography conception for the theatre play ¨Ihtijej¨ “Manifestation”
2012 Group exhibition “Tableau noir” at the Acropolium of Carthage - Tunis
2012 Exhibition in tribute of Mahmoud Messadi
2011 Group exhibition at the National Library of Tunis
2009-11 Group exhibition at the Printemps des Arts of La Marsa,Tunis
2009 Group exhibition at the Cultural Centre of Gabes
2009 Scenography / creative direction of the theatre play “Rahil” / “Voyage”
2009 Solo exhibition at the gallery Arty-Show, La Marsa, Tunis
News
Tunisie : quand l'art contemporain pointe le bout de son nez by Sonia Desprez , 23 june 2015 :
Article by Helen Jennings on Tunisian art scene:
http://www.nataal.com/tunisian-art
Luciano Benetton Collection :
http://www.imagomundiart.com/artworks/slimen-elkamel-untitled
Artyshow Gallery, Tunis:
https://vimeo.com/20463169