Hakim Ghazali

James Parry, Dubai - The son of very conservative parents, he was not allowed to play in the street all day like many of his peers but was confined indoors for much of the time. At the age of three Ghazali was sent to Quranic School, and it was there that he made two discoveries that would transform his future:first,a great love of drawing,which emerged as he was taught the elegance and discipline of classical Quranic calligraphy; second, a huge talent for understanding from and colour.

His first ‘work’ was executed at the age of six, when he drew a small section of Quranic script on a piece of wood, his teacher –Al Haj Ahmed – then added some artistic embellishment in the form of a border decoration. The result, which still hangs today on the wall of Ghazali’s living–room in his Paris apartment, is a simple but powerful statement of the artist’s beginnings. Its strength is underlined by a charming small portrait Ghazali later painted of Al Haj Ahmed, the only visual representation that exists of the master-teacher, who dies without ever having been photographed.

Al Haj Ahmed soon understood the potential of his pupil. He advised Ghazali’s parents to “watch this boy ,he has real talent”, but there was no tradition of artistic expression in the family, so Ghazali was forced to draw and paint in secret (‘en cachette’, as he expresses it). In order to try to learn more about what was going on in the arts, both elsewhere in morocco and overseas, he would go to downtown Casablanca and buy old magazine by the kilo. At home he would flick through the pages in secret and devour the information and images he saw before him.

Ghazali had resolved to try and become a professional artist, but he recognised that he would need to develop his skills further by training formally in the arts. He subsequently studied the plastic arts full-time for three years in his home town and held his firstshow–a solo one at that–when only 19.

Among the visitors to the host gallery was the Moroccan minister of culture, who was so impressed by what he saw that he immediately awarded Ghazali a scholarship to undertake further studies in France. At that time Ghazali was concentrating solely on calligraphy. But his work in that direction was far from traditional in style. He became fascinated by the morphology of letters, focusing on their compilation and line. And on the way in which they evolve and transform into other shapes and constantly changing nature, continues to inspire him today.

Studies in France - in Amiens and Paris – included instruction in graphic design and printing, disciplines which Ghazali absorbed and adapted for application in his art. Many of his paintings today exhibit components that reflect aspects of this training; for example, he likes to insert seemingly random sections of type set, text and fragments of old newsprint into his works, often painting over them to fade them into the background and build up the textured effect he has come to perfect.

Ghazali now divides his time between Paris and Morocco. Yet, while his horizons have expanded, hugely since those early days in Casablanca, he remains a curiously homespun character , acutely aware of his roots. He is currently researching his family tree. The sustenance that this background provides is both constant and cyclical, feeding directly into his art. “Painting is never final”, he says.“Art is rebirth. Repeatedly, with work a new life emergese very time”.