Fez — L’Atelier 21 will open a new solo exhibition by Moroccan painter and calligrapher Larbi Cherkaoui on April 21 in Casablanca, with the show running through May 23 under the title “Une expérience-limite de la lettre” (“A limit-experience of the letter”).
The exhibition is taking place at the Casablanca space of L’Atelier 21, with the opening scheduled for Tuesday, April 21.
The new body of work continues a path Cherkaoui has pursued for decades: treating the Arabic letter not only as writing, but as image, material, and movement. According to the exhibition presentation, the letter appears in different states throughout the series — at times clearly legible in its calligraphic structure, at other moments multiplied, fragmented, or dispersed across the surface until it functions less like text and more like rhythm.
That approach places Cherkaoui in a space between calligraphy and abstraction, where language is never fully abandoned but is constantly pushed toward a more open visual field.
Instead of using the letter as a fixed sign, the exhibition appears to turn it into a pictorial force shaped by balance, contrast, and repetition.
A Marrakech artist with a long-running visual language
Born in Marrakech in 1972, Cherkaoui has developed a distinctive practice centered on the plastic possibilities of Arabic script. L’Atelier 21 describes him as an artist who began as a calligrapher before giving that discipline a more plastic rhythm in his paintings, often using skin as a preferred medium and, in some works, dyeing it with henna to create contemporary compositions.
The gallery also notes that his work is held in several public and private collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Art of Tunis, the Museum of Archaeology of Silves, the Fondation ONA, Bank Al-Maghrib, Royal Mansour, and La Mamounia. He lives and works in Marrakech.
