Mahi Binebine's work as an artist, novelist, and educator reflect his experiences both looking homeward as an immigrant but also outward as an observor of the human condition. Born in the medina in Marrakesh, Morocco Mahi was deeply affected by his childhood. He would later write of some of the people he encountered as a child as ill-fortuned ”and left footsore by life.” Mahi moved to France as a young adult to study mathematics at the University of Paris at Jussie. After working in Paris as an mathematics teacher, Mahi began devoting himself to writing and painting. Within a relatively short period Binebine wrote six novels, which have been translated into various languages. Many argue that his paintings, however, provide the more visceral framing of his ideas. Hauntingly dreamlike, his paintings often depict hadowy silhouettes of humans forms emerging from red and blue backgrounds. Suggesting both the fragility and power of humans, particularly women, his paintings hold an important place in contemporary Moroccan and North African art. His art can be found in public and private collections throughout the world, including the permanent collection at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

 

Kismot: You were a mathematics professor in Paris before becoming a painter. How did you decide to become an artist?

Mahi Binebine: I knew early on that I had a penchant for art. I have been slow to find my way.
With mathematics, I compelled and forced it as my first trade. My mother sent me to boarding school at My Youssef Rabat to keep me away from my fellow musicians. It was like spending three years in a prison. My only escape was studying. The sooner I won my LAC (Le Lieu D'art et de Culture), the better for my art projects (quite uncommon at the time). In Paris I met many artists, and I wanted to be like them. So I began painting and writing. Now, tomorrow I may be fascinated by something else – the theater, for example...

K : Migration is a recurring theme in your work. Why this is this theme important to you?

M: First, I like to travel. I come from a continent where people can not move because of the drastic reduction of visas to travel to Western countries. That’s why I wrote "Cannibal." The tragedy of "illegal" immigration haunted me for a long time. In the Strait of Gibralter, as elsewhere, young people continue to die of drowning...

K: You are also a renowned novelist in both Morocco and abroad. What challenges do you find in expressing your ideas through the medium of painting as opposed to writing?

M: When I paint I begin by sketching a character on the surface, and then I try to enter and see what's inside. When I write I immediately place myself within the character, within in the feelings trying to restore an image. So, between painting and writing, there is a move back and forth that I find very interesting. Painting and writing allow me to dissect the many facets of human nature.

K: Women and female forms are an important element in your paintings, often depicted as ethereal silhouettes but also as powerful figures. What has influenced your depiction of women in your paintings?

M: My father left when I was very young. I grew up surrounded by women. It is probably for this reason that women take an important dimension in my work, and actually more so in my novels that in my paintings.

K: Morocco has a long history of art and artisans. What differences have you found between contemporary art in Morocco and contemporary art in other places you have lived, particularly France or the United States?

M: Honestly, the visual arts in Morocco, even if it is young, has nothing to envy in Western art. In painting, there are warm colors such as those found in South American art, but otherwise there is a generation of Moroccan artists trained in fine arts schools in the Middle-East as well as Europe. There are painters, sculptors, engravers, designers, photographers, videographers, animated by a great desire for freedom, without destroying the complex physical limitations of painting, purifying its language to the extreme, and mocking the aesthetic expression and traditional codes. They all employ the processes and methods that technology offers the new century.