Driss Ouadahi b. 1959

Overview

Driss Ouadahi (b. 1959, Casablanca, Morocco) takes as his subject matter the built environment of urban alienation — sterile modernist public housing developments, wire netting and underground passageways. He paints works of paradoxical beauty using this stark urbanism as his springboard, with persistent concerns of geometric abstraction, transparency and the implication of the veil. His large formal landscapes are montages of spaces and places he knows, often omitting human-scale details. He studied at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts d’Alger before graduating from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Berlin Biennale, Palais de Tokyo, and the Venice Biennale, and is held in collections including the Von der Heydt Museum, FRAC Centre, Barjeel Art Foundation and Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf.

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Works

Carcasse/Heimat, 2005
Eclat, 2017
Errance / Wandering, 2018
Au Fur et à Mesure, 2018
Silhouettes Narratives, 2018
Translucide, 2018
The cube, 2019
Carcasse enchantée II, 2019
Tenir sur un fil, 2019
Ethereal, 2019
Le retour, 2021

Biography

Driss Ouadahi (b. 1959, Casablanca, Morocco) takes as his subject matter the built environment of urban alienation — sterile modernist public housing developments, wire netting and underground passageways. Using this stark urbanism as his springboard, he paints works of paradoxical beauty in which geometric abstraction, transparency and the implication of the veil remain central concerns. His large formal landscapes are montages of spaces and places he knows, often omitting human-scale details, transforming architecture into layered compositions of grids, barriers and passages that oscillate between painting and spatial illusion. Born in 1959 in Casablanca, Morocco, to Algerian parents, Ouadahi grew up in Algeria and studied at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts d’Alger before graduating from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany.

Recent solo exhibitions include Les Murmures, Martin Leyer-Pritzkow, Düsseldorf, Germany (2021); Revisited Spaces, Hosfelt Gallery; San Francisco (2020), Extra Muros, Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai (2019); Systems of Demacration, Von der Heydt-Kunsthalle Wuppertal-Barmen, Germany (2018); Transposition, Caroline Pagès Gallery, Lisbon (2016); Breach in the Silence, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco (2016); Inside Zenith, Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai (2014); Implosion, Caroline Pagès Gallery, Lisbon (2013); Trans-Location, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco (2013); and Breathing Space, Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai (2012).

Notable institutional exhibitions include Line, Plane, Space: 100 Years of the Ratingen Museum, Ratingen Museum, Germany (2026); the 12th Berlin Biennale (2022); Klassen Verhältnisse / Phantoms of Perception, Kunstverein Hamburg (2018); Welkome Party, Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal (2018); Dessine vos Desseins, Musée public national d'art contemporain d'Alger (2018); L’un et L’Autre, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2018); Beautiful Stranger, Museum De Wieger, Netherlands (2017); and Future of a Promise, 54th Venice Biennale (2011).

Ouadahi’s work is held in public collections including Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal; Modern Forms, London; FRAC Centre, Orléans; Herbert-Weisenburger-Stiftung, Rastatt; Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf; Nadour Collection; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah; Kamel Lazaar Foundation; and Stadtsparkasse Baden-Baden.

In 2014 he received the Grand Prix Léopold Sédar Senghor Prize at the 11th Dak’Art Biennial of Contemporary African Art in Dakar.

Driss Ouadahi lives and works in Düsseldorf.

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Exhibitions