Masque totemic #5, 2024

Tarek   Best sellers Emerging artists

Tarek is well-known for his graffiti work as well as his illustrations and comics, which he infuses with his modern and endearing characters. The artist, whose full name is Tarek Ben Yakhlef, was born in Paris in 1971. He grew up surrounded by the urban artistic scene, and made his way into the graffiti world at a young age - an artistic community he's now an active protagonist of.

Trained in history and history of art at the Sorbonne, and keen on street art, he published at only 20 years old "Paris Tonkar", the first book dedicated to graffiti to ever come out in Europe. This publication was the very first to give a voice to taggers and graffiti-artists, mentioning their motivations, their artistic approaches as well as the public reception following this new cultural phenomenon.

The camera quickly replaced Tarek's aerosols, as he slowly became a privileged witness of French urban art. Simultaneously, the artist developed his art on other media, such as comics, a field in which he found himself to be very successful. But spray cans were never away for too long: they still allowed him to leave a trace of his passage in this world on city walls.

Listed on Artprice since 2014, his paintings are now part of several art lovers' collections all around the world: Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Rennes, Brussels, Montreal, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Geneva, Zürich, Lausanne, Tokyo, Hamburg, Venice, Lodz, Prague, Athens, Zagreb, Budapest, Kribi, São Paulo, Dakar... His works are also exhibited in museums, cities and private companies: Viltaïs (Moulins), City of Guéret, French Red Cross (Paris), Ad Tatum (Paris), Havas Worldwide (Paris), MoLA Museum (Paris), Graff'art (Saint-Ouen), Street art city (Lurcy-Lévis), Hospital La Porte Verte (Versailles), Shoes or no Shoes Museum and King Albert II Institute (Belgium) as well as Havas Worldwide (Tunis)...