Fez — From January 15 to March 15, the JAAL Riad Resort will host “Hybrid Portraits,” the latest series by Moroccan artist Salaheddine Bouanani, offering visitors an immersive encounter with portraits that blur the boundaries between body, matter, and technology.

Bouanani, a pharmacist by training and a self-taught artist, has built a practice rooted in experimentation. He approaches art as an extension of the laboratory, transforming everyday materials into expressive tools. 

In “Hybrid Portraits,” the face is no longer a simple mirror of identity. It becomes a shifting surface where emotion, memory, and physical substance collide.

A laboratory of materials and textures

The series brings together painting, photography, and digital art, assembled through a dense layering of materials. Acrylic paint, resin, sand, wood shavings, and electronic fragments coexist within each work, creating portraits that appear both fractured and alive. 

These elements are not used for decoration. Instead, they extend the body itself, suggesting new forms of flesh shaped by time, experience, and technological presence.

Bouanani’s compositions balance chaos and control. Thick textures and rough surfaces are countered by precise gestures, allowing figures to emerge gradually from the material. Faces seem to mutate before the viewer’s eyes, as if caught mid-transformation, suspended between erosion and construction.

Questioning the living in a digital age

At the heart of “Hybrid Portraits” lies a reflection on the contemporary human condition. By integrating organic and industrial components, Bouanani invites viewers to question their relationship with the living world, memory, and machines. 

The electronic fragments embedded in the works hint at an age where identity is increasingly mediated by technology, stored, fragmented, and reassembled.

Each portrait tells its own story, yet none offers a fixed narrative. The faces resist easy interpretation, encouraging prolonged observation and personal projection. In this sense, the exhibition becomes less about representation and more about encounter.

An evolving international journey

The Marrakech exhibition follows Bouanani’s growing international presence. His work has previously been shown in the United States, Spain, and across Morocco, steadily drawing attention for its polymorphic universe and tactile intensity. 

“Hybrid Portraits” marks a continuation of this trajectory, while also deepening his exploration of materiality and form.