Abdelkader Benchamma

Abdelkader Benchamma imposes constraints upon his process to create delicately executed and dynamic drawings of states of matter. Events explode off the page and are animated by fusing graphic techniques from printing, engraving, landscape and scientific drawing. In his scenes he reveals the purity and intensity of lines to express powerful and ambiguous atmospheres which probe notions of a stable reality. Benchamma uses these varied techniques and media to explore the constructed aspect of reality, inspired by cosmology, science fiction, literature, and the existentialist theatre.

He lives and works between Paris and Montpellier. He studied Fine art at l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Montpellier and l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. He has recently exhibited in a solo show at FRAC Auvergne and the Drawing Center of New York, curated by Joanna Kleinberg Romanow. He has participated in numerous solo shows in institutions as the LAM Musée d’Art Moderne d’Art Contemporain and d’Art Brut in Lille, in the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, and the Palais de Tokyo, among others.

In 2011 he was part of the exhibition The Future of a Promise, curated by Lina Lazaar, a collateral event of the 54th Venice Biennial. His work can be found among prestigious collections such as FRAC Languedoc-Roussillon’s, the Mathaf, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Arab Art’s in Doha, the Farjam collection (Dubai) and the Barjeel Foundation, Sharjah and the Farook collection, Dubai.