"A drawing would-it command not to name it."[1] This quote reminds me of the first time I experienced Thameur Mejri’s work. It's like a puzzled feeling of not knowing where to look or where to begin navigating between the de-constructed lines and elements. My gaze started seeking elements I might know or that I could name as the eye generally seeks to settle on the familiar spots, in its background as the human being always seeks comfort.
The skull, the fly and the TV shed a statement by their scales and duplication. A quite complex and polysemic combination which leads me to compose their meaning, to look for plausible connections to the world in which we live, or simply in the artist's narratives.
These were the first elements and milestones of Mejri’s body of work, the protagonists of his productions who appear in his paintings, drawings or sketches. The skull as an ultimate symbol of vanity which tends to orient the reading like a compass and the inevitable fate of death, along with the fly by its light and absurd presence and the weight of the television which influenced a whole generation allied to the information, to the advent of the mass media and of its power of influence.
The return to the fundamentals such as the pictorial elements used by the artist are at the centre of Over the Edge. The exhibition features the curious connection of a deconstructed reality characterized by shredded bodies and recomposed in a pseudo-anatomical logic that suggests rather a tumultuous being in juxtaposition of the artist’s mundane everyday practices.
Drawing with charcoal was a major artistic gesture for this exhibition. After painting and mixed media, the drawing has found its place in the space of a canvas as an act of rejuvenation and of research at the same time
Along with the pictorial leitmotiv that followed the artist’s journey, the body of work is centred on the genesis of any drawing, which is the point, the line, and the brushstrokes of the flashy colours that serve as a plenum background to black bold graphite hatches.
The assemblage of forms remains as a deconstructed anatomy as Mejri perceives society, the psyche, the political, transposed into the drawing as a metaphor or figurative meaning. As if we pushed the limits of the painting, had peeled its skin to see what remains. We will find a drawing with graphite powder with a hatched treatment where the skull, the fly and the television master elements that have driven the work of Mejri since its genesis are honoured.
The exhibition will deal with what can be kept of the traces of life, what can be maintained of a deconstruction process, resilience and exposure of the ordeals experienced by the artist, materialised by the remains of the characters who carry the pennant of vanity of socio-political postures, of a daily practice or of an introspective relationship to oneself.
One needs time to navigate, contemplate, decompose what Mejri’s work offer as an experience. A layered reading, where each time an element pops out or even a kid’s drawing in between of sharp elements, skulls or knifes. It pushes the limits over the edge of reading and perceiving giving space to time, colours and shapes to fulfill a contemplation on a complex reading journey.
