Hafida Zizi is a extremely proficient Moroccan painter who has gained worldwide recognition for her distinctive fashion and strategy to artwork.
Zizi’s naïve fashion and day-glo color palette inform the tales of Morocco’s Amazigh ladies by way of meals, music and dance. We spoke to Hafida in her gallery within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Ait Benhaddou, the place her shiny, poppy work nestle among the many stone of the historic environment.
What drew you to portray?
When I used to be 27, I misplaced my mother, who was additionally my greatest good friend. I used to inform her every little thing and open up to her about something that was bothering me. When she handed away, I didn’t have anybody to speak to or share my emotions with. That’s once I turned to artwork as a strategy to categorical my feelings.
I began utilizing ladies’s faces in my artwork to explain my childhood and the best way I grew up, as a result of ladies performed a giant position in my life, particularly my mother. Men have been hardly ever included, and if I did use them, it was solely a small proportion. Art grew to become a means for me to deal with the lack of my mother and to share my story with others.
Where does your inspiration for colors come from?
When it involves the colors I exploit in my work, I like the first colors akin to purple, yellow, blue and inexperienced. However, I additionally take pleasure in experimenting with new colors and creating distinctive mixtures. Sometimes in a single tableau, I could use over 40 totally different colors. An ocean of colors!
And your gallery right here in Ait Benhaddou shows the work of different ladies, is that proper?
Yes, I presently have two or three artists exhibiting their work alongside mine. I even have a lady from a close-by village who didn’t know something about portray, however I taught her and she or he has been making progress. She has developed her personal fashion and contact, and I’m happy with her. Whenever there may be an exhibition, I all the time invite women to assist out as a strategy to give again and encourage others to pursue their ardour for artwork.
What is the panorama like for ladies artists in Morocco?
In Morocco, we’ve many proficient ladies artists who’re extremely educated and have studied in museums or institutes of portray, each in Morocco and abroad. I do know that I’m not very effectively educated, however I’m impressed and I’ve a present.
As for the naive fashion that I exploit in my work, I hope that it’s going to encourage extra ladies to color on this fashion. The first lady who began this fashion in Morocco has since handed away, however I imagine that there can be extra women and girls who will take up this artwork kind sooner or later as a result of it’s a nice job and a great way to specific your self.
Is it typically troublesome to be a girl artist in Morocco?
I imagine that if in case you have a ardour, nothing is troublesome.
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