Preparing for TAKE ONE: Meet Yassine Mekhnache

We are getting closer to the group exhibition at Catherine Ahnell Gallery next week, January 15th, presenting a review of 2013’s work in the gallery. Over the course of last year four artists were invited at different periods of time to live and work in the gallery. Did you miss any of these artists? Come by for a second chance.

The first artist to exhibit at the gallery ever was Yassine “Yaze” Mekhnache. With his exhibition Wandering he opened the gallery with a big success.

Yassine, one of the most popular young artists working in France today, debuted at Catherine Ahnell Gallery with new, complex, multilayered abstract paintings.

As a wanderer Yassine started exploring emotionally charged art in the streets of his home, Lyon, before shifting into fine art. He does not commit himself to entirely one medium. In a gesture similar to street art, Yassine incorporates traditional Moroccan embroideries into the surface of each piece that are painted over with different colors.

Gallery owner Regis Krampf has said, “Yassine is not the first artist to call to our unconscious, but never in my opinion, has anyone played with the idea of the painting as accident, and controlled gesture, with such success rate.”

The splash and saturation of Yassine’s new large-scale paintings also symbolize the vibrant beat of the city. The artist’s incorporation of Moroccan embroidery sets his work free from the framework of traditional painting, transforming his canvases into sites where East meets West. Each painting becomes even more personal through the artist’s subtle application of mark that renders the vestige of a portrait, first emerging but then disappearing into clouds of color.

As a self-taught artist, Yassine’s art has appeared in numerous exhibitions since 1997. He has pursued residencies at “AL MAQAM” in Morocco and Villa Abdelatif in Algeria. Yassine’s paintings are included in the collections of Agnès b., Marrianne Orlowsky and Jérémy Rocher, and the Musee d’Art Contemporain d’Alger. His most recent solo exhibition LYFE appeared in 2011 at Galerie Suzanne Tarasiève in Paris. In 2009 Galerie L.J. in Paris debuted the artist’s combinations of Moroccan embroideries in a solo show Piece of Me. In November 2012 Yassine’s art was represented by Regis Krampf at the Istanbul Art Fair. He had a solo show at the Krampf Gallery in January 2013.

Group exhibition TAKE ONE

January 15th

66 Grand Street

6-9pm

RSVP: info@catherineahnellgallery.com