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Lot Essay
Rachid Korachi is fascinated and influenced by signs, both imaginary, as well as real symbols. It all starts with the intricate beauty of the Arabic calligraphic script, the theatrical Chinese characters, as well as numerological insights of many of the ancient forgotten cultures. Korachi employs his own devised abstracted sign language in an organized flow of repeated lines, with intricate illegible words. His signs create a marvelous effect, rich in conveying sensual messages to the world. These texts are reminiscent of old texts carved on temples and shrines, where the individual letter disappears and dissolves, but the overall effect of unification still reigns. This cosmopolitan artist, who lives between Paris and Tunisia, has a deep rooted attachment to his upbringing in a Sufi mystical spiritual family and is so immersed in his Algerian heritage where he was born back in 1947 in Ain Beida. His sculptural explorations extend across a wide range of media, including ceramics, metallurgy, printmaking, textiles, silk, paper and canvas. Embracing modernity and universality with his sacred scripts and magical signs, the aesthetics of his work is solely derived from the word, from the letter, as well as from a strong link to poetry.
Among the many symbols used by Korachi, the cypress indicates an ascension to a higher place and a path to an upper spirituality. The circle generally symbolizes the sky and the spiritual world. The boat is the symbol of travel of the crossing of the existence. The crescent is representative of a star, and mainly heaven. The spiral symbolizes the dynamics of life, the movement of the spirits. And so on, every small curve, every small representation has another meaning in another dimension.
As a child, Rachid Korachi was fascinated by the dancing curved lines he traced in old prints of his ancestors and in old manuscripts. His style is immediately recognizable and has a very strong signature and permanent visibility in numerous international artistic manifestations. This is combined with an impressive international exposure around the world. To him, writing is art, but he is not defined as a classical calligrapher. His script is his own creation. Rachid Korachi often intervenes to pay tribute to writers he loves. He does not illustrate directly the writings or poems of certain poets, or famous writers. But once he understands their messages, he seeks to realize and to register the impulse that inspired the text. A good example and a very inspirational book was that of Rumi, the Sufi poet and philosopher of the thirteenth century. His book revolves around seven themes: tolerance, the Creation, the mirror, poetry, dance, music and love, as seven pathways to a single universe
Among the many symbols used by Korachi, the cypress indicates an ascension to a higher place and a path to an upper spirituality. The circle generally symbolizes the sky and the spiritual world. The boat is the symbol of travel of the crossing of the existence. The crescent is representative of a star, and mainly heaven. The spiral symbolizes the dynamics of life, the movement of the spirits. And so on, every small curve, every small representation has another meaning in another dimension.
As a child, Rachid Korachi was fascinated by the dancing curved lines he traced in old prints of his ancestors and in old manuscripts. His style is immediately recognizable and has a very strong signature and permanent visibility in numerous international artistic manifestations. This is combined with an impressive international exposure around the world. To him, writing is art, but he is not defined as a classical calligrapher. His script is his own creation. Rachid Korachi often intervenes to pay tribute to writers he loves. He does not illustrate directly the writings or poems of certain poets, or famous writers. But once he understands their messages, he seeks to realize and to register the impulse that inspired the text. A good example and a very inspirational book was that of Rumi, the Sufi poet and philosopher of the thirteenth century. His book revolves around seven themes: tolerance, the Creation, the mirror, poetry, dance, music and love, as seven pathways to a single universe