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Femme et mur (WOMAN AND WALL) M'hamed Issiakhem - 1977-78 |
An Algerian woman with pursed lips and downcast eyes, encircled in kohl, stares into the distance in quiet contemplation. She holds her hands together against her abdomen in a self-contained posture.
She is dressed in traditional Amazigh garb and jewellery that the celebrated Algerian painter Mohammed Issiakhem renders with exquisite attention to the tactile nature of layered fabric. Through the use of a ghostly monochromatic palette infused with light, the figure is both framed by and blends into the wall against which she stands.
Its details reveal graffitti-like references to the Algerian War (1954-1962), in particular its final turbulent year before Algeria gained independence from France.
The left of the canvas has the letters "FLN" and "OAS" in vertical succession; the former referring to the Algerian National Liberation Front; the latter, the French paramilitary Secret Army Organisation. This painting belongs to a series that Issiakhem undertook during the 1970s and 1980s, which focused on the figure of the Algerian woman in the decades following independence.
A painter, sculptor and teacher, Issiakhem was a leading proponent of Algeria’s modernist and anti-colonial movements, often contributing to publications of the FLN. Shifting between abstraction and figuration, Issiakhem’s work often references the female figure, Amazigh traditions, and themes of personal struggle. Following the loss of his arm in a grenade blast, Issiakhem attended Algeria’s École des Beaux-Arts until 1951, studying miniature painting under the department’s founder, Omar Racim.
He later studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris before returning to Algeria after its independence in 1962.
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