Born in 1944 in Boulemane, Abdelkébir Rabi 'attended the Ecole Normale de Fès (1961) to become a teacher. From 1967 to 1988, he taught in secondary schools. He trained himself alone in art by reading specialized works and by consulting the artistic documents he found in the city's libraries and by performing artistic courses in France. In 1988, he taught at the Hassan II University Art and Aesthetics. He retired from teaching in 2003 to devote himself to painting. His first solo exhibition took place in 1968 in Fez.
He lives and works in Casablanca.
Artwork
Rabi 'began to paint in a figurative style and was gradually moving towards an abstract painting in the 1970s. Since 1980, Rabi' s work has taken a very original place in Moroccan painting. He gives himself to a meticulous preparation of the support by successive layers of coatings which he smooths and polishes. There appear vigorous black lines articulated between them and conquered on an initial white. The sensitive sign, of a black opaque or transparent, is inscribed essentially in one go. Thus light and shadow clash according to the intimately mixed experiences of spiritual life and pictorial creation. This intense spirituality that underlies the work gives it amplitude and height.
The artist focuses his energy on the creation of shapes capable of accounting for the infinite deployment of time, to vibrate the space of the canvas. Each painting of Rabi 'results from a different meditation with its organizing scheme and its own rhythm, it is therefore an act of faith, in the strong sense of these two terms and belongs to this "truth of certainty" evoked by Rabi' in one of his texts, foiling explanations that are too rational. He is a painter, not of matter, but of light, which is captured together by the wide black furrows and the light surface.
"The best way to express light is to talk about shadow. Shadow exists only throughout light, and light exists only by itself. "
(Abdelkébir Rabi ')
Bibliography
• Shadow Essays Catalog, Retrospective, Space Art-Societe Generale Casablanca 2009
• Collective of Authors Abdelkébir Rabi 'ed. Galerie Venise Casablanca Frame 2009
• Abdelkadir Rabi 'Catalog, Venice Frame Gallery, Casablanca 2004
• Mohamed Sijelmassi Contemporary Art in Morocco, ACR Edition 1989
• Alain Flamand Regards on Moroccan Painting, Publishing and Dissemination Company Al-Madariss Casablanca 1983