INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST TAHER JAOUI
Taher
Jaoui
b. 1978 · French-Tunisian · Berlin · financial engineer turned painter
A family of mathematicians, a career in finance, a stint as an actor, and then a canvas that gets rotated from every angle, attacked with oil, enamel, spray paint and charcoal. Order and chaos in deliberate tension. It is all about living the moment.
Taher Jaoui (b. 1978) is a French-Tunisian artist living in Berlin. His work mixes painting and drawing, abstraction and representation, in combinations of oil, enamel, spray paint and charcoal on canvas. His background is originally scientific: raised in a family of mathematicians and trained as a financial engineer, he brings mathematical rigour and technical structure into his art. Before becoming a visual artist, he spent several years as an actor, learning to use the body as a vehicle for emotion. That connection to gesture remains central.
He began his career in art in 2013 as a collage artist working with vintage photographs on small paper formats, and started painting in 2014. As an expressionist, his aim is to translate his emotion of the moment onto the painting surface. The canvas is constantly rotated and approached from all angles, and the paintings emerge through an intense, physical process.
“It is all about living the moment and living in the moment.”
Kandinsky, Gorky, Dudamel, and everything else.
“I am inspired by all the abstract and figurative movements since the Second World War. I love the work of Vassily Kandinsky and Arshile Gorky among others. I find a lot of inspiration in the conductor and violinist Gustavo Dudamel. I am very curious about different fields: computer science, history, philosophy, cinema. Everything inspires me.”
Influenced by traditional African art, graffiti, glitch aesthetics, abstract expressionism and the COBRA movement, Jaoui uses motifs, familiar shapes and chalk-like scribbles to evoke a sense of intuitive mark-making. Since he began painting, he has been fascinated by ancient civilisations and types of art from Africa, particularly masks and sculptures, wanting to relate to that art while incorporating it into more current forms of expression: abstract expressionism, cubism, cartoons and pop art.
Working predominantly at large scale, Jaoui creates paintings charged with raw, unconstrained energy. Movement drives the work. Biomorphic forms, at times suggestive of invented creatures, animate his compositions, while abstract marks evoke mathematical equations. His work integrates mathematical logic with the spontaneity of abstract expressionism, reminding us that creation can be simultaneously rigorous and free. For Jaoui, painting is a dance with a familiar partner: an ongoing negotiation between mastery of material and surrender to instinct.
That it makes people happy.
“I love when the viewers or the collectors tell me that they feel happiness when they see my work. Actually, that is what I hear and like the most, that my work makes people happy.”
“I do not have a clear opinion about this. I am kind of a geek guy, focusing on my work and my process. This question is more for gallerists, I guess.”
Artsy, Artnet, and Brainy Quote.
“Every gallery is different by the size and the culture. I work with small galleries and also with big ones. I am part of big shows and small shows. I am very open and also careful with the selection.”
“Painting is a dance with a familiar partner: mastery of material and surrender to instinct.”
Antakly Projects, originally Ninu Nina, has been in conversation with the most inspiring voices in art, photography, design and culture since 2003. Interview by Leila Antakly. Taher Jaoui paints the way a mathematician solves equations: by rotating the problem until the answer appears.
Artwork © Taher Jaoui. Thank you to Taher for the conversation.
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Love is the answer. ✦
