CHOUKINI. New Sculptures.
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Thierry Savatier :
Chaouki Choukini’s sculptures bear witness to his singular aesthetic. Abstract, they nevertheless include some mineral or biological details, even anthropomorphic or that can be interpreted as such (Liberté fauve). His strange formal constructions sometimes seem to defy the laws of balance; they present unexpected recesses or projections that plunge the viewer into an imaginary that is both dreamlike and all the more disturbing as the softness of the impeccably polished surfaces contrasts with the sometimes dark character of the whole (Paysage au clair de lune, 1978 ; Lieu, 1978). When we know that the artist works with wood or stone in direct carving, we measure his dexterity in playing with material / light oppositions to make the most of them.
Spirituality and metaphysics mark the plasticity of his works, just as humanity permeates them (Little Prince. Child of Gaza, 2010). However, the artist does not refrain from paying homage to the art of his predecessors, sometimes with a certain surrealist humor (Hommage à Breughel, 2001) or an attraction for tragic allegory, like this very totemic Horse of Guernica (wood, 2010; bronze, 2011) of which Picasso, no more than of the bull, did not reveal the secret symbolism, leaving the viewer his free interpretation. The figures of Chaouki Choukini, whether they recall landscapes or even satellite views (Les Environs de Damas, 2012) in their horizontality or that they challenge the sky in their verticality (Li Bayrut, 2020), are striking with their minimalist aesthetic , undoubtedly inherited from his Japanese experience which came to supplement his Eastern and Western sensibilities.
