The work of Nidhal Chamekh can not be defined by the single technique, which borrows both painting, that drawing, or collage and is evolving towards installation and sculpture. Mixed technique is a first for him freedom means that, in a mixture of approaches, will build a sense.
Initially, there is an intention, but it is quickly carried out by the act of creation itself, which leads to an unexpected direction. This explains why the series can be an interrogative title: What dream of martyrs? The artist is not intended to illustrate the answer, reproduce plastically but it leaves the plastic language give answers. Questioning is in the same way to produce the work.
Take the example of the work which bears the title "Drawing 7" of the aforementioned series. The drawing shows the face of a cleverly designed Tunisian martyr. Confused in his neck popped another drawing that could be autonomous, a spine with the rib cage, lower back and neck. Across these two figures in ink stroke, the body of another martyr lies, designed with the same black and precise line of scientific board or sketch of a police scene. Around these three central figures revolve images from magazines or glued or screen printed. Decorative flower pattern wallpaper occupy a secondary part of the design while interacting with the central point. The three figures themselves are bound by the superposition of patterns but also by the technical elements: line segments numbered as legends are transferred to the treated as a study of Leonardo spine. A mechanical object such as a piece that could weld the parts together, repair or bruising, which could be a pin or a tool of torture, is added to the bone structure. Numbers come as captions on each part of the object. Entries, photos enigmatic or not, depending on the culture of the viewer, the Arab signs, references to violence, the word, contribute to a message that the author himself seems to discover at the same time he said .
The speech, essentially fragmentary, which is reminiscent of the Dadaist freedom, draws from all eras and confused spaces and cultures in the image of its multiple inheritance. It reports its complexity, it is not uniform, nor necessarily consistent or monolithic, but makes attempts sometimes harmonious and sometimes in contradictory directions. Only voltage and resistance boundaries and separations are clear. The meaning, however, are not naive and selected forms show.
text by Marc Monsallier (translation Kaouther Hamri)
