Abdul Rahman Katanani

Abdul Rahman Katanani is a protean artist whose work reflects a strong social and civic commitment. Using art as a mean of resistance, he lays a sensitive eye on the problems of the world. Katanani does a work of memory, with the intimate conviction that from it comes a form of tolerance and acceptance of the other. Katanani gives as much space to the substance as to the form in the aesthetics of his works. Skillfully, he tames all kinds of materials accumulated over time: barbed wire, corrugated iron sheets, tires, fabrics or gas cans.

Paradoxically, these materials that are part of his daily life are cold. Even if they come in their raw state, very rarely painted, Katanani manages to highlight emotions with a subtle play of shadow and light. From his special creative process emerges a duality between the reality of the reworked chaotic elements and the beauty of the final composition. About barbed wire – a material omnipresent in his work, forming the branches of his famous olive trees – he says: "It hurts me when I work with it, but the work gives me the greatest pleasure."