Mohamed Melehi: A Giant of Postcolonial Art in Morocco

In 1964, after several years honing his craft in Madrid, Rome, Paris and New York, the painter, designer and cultural activist Mohamed Melehi returned to his home country of Morocco, where he joined the faculty of the Casablanca Art School. As an artist and a teacher, he committed himself to reinforcing the national culture in the context of Morocco’s recent independence from France.

In his own words, Melehi drew attention to the differences in the dynamic views of a Western artist and those of an Arab artist: ‘Notre art propose plutôt une contemplation qu’une réalité congelée. Notre art qui apparaît statique et synthétique est un art transcendantal, de la mobilité et de la vibration’1. ('Our art proposes more of a contemplation than a concrete reality. Our art that appears static and synthetic is transcendental, it is of mobility and vibration.')

Melehi abandoned the Western styles that he had adopted early in his career to explore the richness of Arab-Islamic artistic heritage. He eventually created a unique oeuvre, in which the motif of the wave would become his famous signature.

The artist first illustrated a wave in 1971 for the cover of Francophone magazine Intégral. A symbol of the cosmic connection between the sun, the horizon and the sea, Melehi’s iconic wave is always designed like a flame, although the dynamic treatment evolved over time, especially in the artist’s series of paintings in the 1980s, including Blue Moon (1984).

Currently on display in the permanent collection galleries at Mathaf, Blue Moon is fragmented into three parts, each depicting the flame-looking wave. As in many of his other paintings from that time, this one was inspired by the landscape of Melehi’s birth town, Asilah, on the Atlantic Moroccan coast. Creating a bit of fantasy, he painted the thinnest sliver of the waxing crescent moon on the top right corner of the composition, signaling the start of a new moon cycle.

Blue Moon (1984) represents a typical work by Melehi, in which he plays with both curved and straight lines, while repeating the same warm and cold colours. He succeeded in rendering an aesthetic finish that is specific to Arab-Islamic visual culture, using geometric patterns that recall the traditional artisanat (crafts) and architecture of Morocco. According to Melehi, this artisanat is the result of human intelligence, enriched by the diverse local influences, and emblematic of the Moroccan identity.

Convinced that the Arab artist could contribute to universal culture, Mohamed Melehi belongs to a generation of Moroccan artists from the 1960s who had a vision, not only for the development of the arts, but also for the people. By reviving craftmanship in Morocco, he foresaw a reconciliation between the public and their rich cultural identities, especially in the period of liberation from the French mandate. Through a post-colonial artistic approach, Melehi’s oeuvre pointedly reflects the construction of a newly independent national identity.