Ilyes Messaoudi is a Tunisian visual artist working in painting, collage, and embroidery. His work, which is rooted in his North African heritage, connects tradition and modernity to reveal identity...
Ilyes Messaoudi is a Tunisian visual artist working in painting, collage, and embroidery. His work, which is rooted in his North African heritage, connects tradition and modernity to reveal identity struggles, taboos and stereotypes within the Middle East, and critiques on contemporary culture. HELP is based on “One Thousand and One Nights,” a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales, and is rendered naively and energetically in bright colors, thread and silver leaf. Juxtaposing the modern experience of a global virus with the adventure, intrigue and violence of the folk tales, Messaoudi becomes a masterful storyteller of current emotions, taboos and doubts. This work reveals that despite the modernity of current political and social discourse, history inevitably repeats itself.
Messaoudi lives between Tunisia and France and attended the School of Science and Technology in Tunis. Since 2015, he has exhibited his work in France, Tunisia and the UK, including in the show Pop Art From North Africa at the Arab British Centre, London (2017) and Water at Gallery 102, Washington, D.C. (2018). In 2019, Messaoudi illustrated his first book, “The Loves of Antar and Abla.” His work is in the permanent collection of the Arab World Institute in Paris and in several notable private collections.