YOUNIS BENYAHIA, painter and calligrapher, THE EXPRESSION
"Serving the Berber identity"
February 22, 2011
He was born in Kabylie, studied art in Constantine, then at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Algiers. In 2000, disappointed with an atmosphere that did not seem quite suitable for it to evolve in his art, he decided to leave Algeria to go "where the prospects of success and creative space were favorable. "He will land in France, will experience a little galley of new arrivals, but his talent, perseverance, willingness to show what he could and wanted to know and share the wealth inherited from the Berber heritage and transmitted by the ancestors, will give him the land and mark it open the doors of a field while beauty and wealth, where the mixing of cultures does wonders. Proud of its Berber identity, Younis Benyahia do not lock it, quite the contrary, he uses it to open the world and make it known. Loving the colors, sharing and art, he uses admirably to express the beautiful colors of his native Kabylia to Through his works, and giving lessons in calligraphy or painting workshops, instead of sharing and exchange, where the password is art, whatever its identity in all its splendor ...
L'Expression: Tell us a bit about yourself Younis Benyahia: Speaking of my course is a fairly typical year, this is not due to the fact that I am confronted daily with journalists stalk me, so I am known and recognized, but it's just an ego of artist who likes to present his modest way of life, oh! how full of surprises, meetings, discoveries, illusions and disillusion ... and for that, I would say that the richness of a work and its value in beauty is matched only by the experiences of its creator. After Chugging into final for the second time, I decided to return to the Fine Arts on the advice of a friend who was also my art teacher in high school. The heights of
Azazga, Tizi Ouzou, offered an ideal framework for creating, in the old abandoned cabins of the colonial era. I spent the academic year 1992/1993, was the second year of this school and its last until its reopening in 1999. At the closing of the School of Fine Arts Azazga, I enrolled at the School of Constantine, where I finished my studies.
In 1997, I enrolled at the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Algiers until 2000 when I interrupted my studies to go to France, where the prospects of success and creative space were favorable.
What are the highlights of this journey?
The most memorable moments are, certainly, during the year I spent at the Beaux-Arts Azazga. Was all new to me. The setting was pleasant and the difficulties encountered at that time during my studies (lack of teaching resources and financial), gave a special taste in my early days in this medium.
Constantine was also a milestone for me. It was the first time I found myself in a big city and not just any city of the Rock and suspension bridges. It was just wonderful, Constantine ...
I was able to meet other talents from other parts of Algeria, and for the first time, I realized cultural differences that made the richness of my country.
Tell us about your work in association Awal Grand Lyon?
Arriving in France, I started making small sizes (landscapes, portraits and calligraphy) to live. That's what introduced me to the association "Awal Grand Lyon", and many other associations working in the cultural and social field, to discover the Berber culture in general and Algeria in particular, through workshops at the Berber Spring, and many other programs on "Discoveries Berber."
In 2005, I organized, in collaboration with this association, a workshop exploring
the architecture of the Kabyle house, "through which we had made a model with children from immigrant families.
2 years, every year I am invited by the Union of Muslim families in Marseille to celebrate the feast of Eid through calligraphy workshops Berber in the company of other artists, calligraphers, writers, filmmakers, writers ...
Why this choice of the abstract in your work?
Why abstract? Search well, why I came to abstract painting, I look through my childhood memories when I watched the uneven texture of a wall, a door worn by time, shapes of clouds that change , rocks that sometimes take the form of animals or simply forms that conjured nothing. This fueled my imagination, but not my creativity because I had not the notion of art.
Before turning to abstract creations, my training was academic Fine Arts, which led me to do many paintings figurative, at the time of my schooling, to have pocket money and my debut in France in order to survive. My collaboration with associations such as "Grand Lyon Awal" led me to discover the Berber script (Tifinagh) and Berber symbols through the tattoo, wallpaper, and other areas of crafts and as cave drawings.
Hence, my work has evolved into a composition of more abstract where I just keep most of what I loved as impressions of those textures of rough walls, these landscapes architectural firm to the changing lights.
Do you have a message to convey through your work?
My works do not convey a particular message, except my life, through all its states and sensations which are constantly evolving. I also give classes in drawing, painting, and I run workshops in order to discover certain aspects of my culture and share the passion to create.
Why these colors too bright, and mitigated?
My vision is vivid, somehow, to feel more or less strong, or sounds more or less acute or severe. It is also a powerful means of communication and even that may be in certain situations, aggressive, and lacking in moderation. Harmony is, to some extent, the wisdom not to be questioned by the force of contrast or color, but by the sweetness and repose that comes from reading it.
Why this recurrent theme of the city and the use of forms?
Since I was born and grew up in a remote village in the mountains of Kabylia, I found the city very late and this is not just any city. It Constantine the capital of my ancestors, with its history, its architecture, its bridges, its contrasts. The forms used (square, curve, or half circle) are the most representative and abstract at once. Representative because they are the forms that comprise all constructions. And abstract, because it is the very abstraction of all these buildings once broken. Between heaven and these architectures are found in all cultures and in all cities in ways that often resemble (minarets, steeples, arrows, pyramids) and rising to a unit.
Have you been to Algeria? My only
Exhibitions in Algeria dates back to when I was a student, group exhibitions with other students of Fine Arts.
A final word?
I do not waste my wish that one day my paintings hanging on the walls of art galleries in my country, like so many other artists.
"Serving the Berber identity"
February 22, 2011
He was born in Kabylie, studied art in Constantine, then at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Algiers. In 2000, disappointed with an atmosphere that did not seem quite suitable for it to evolve in his art, he decided to leave Algeria to go "where the prospects of success and creative space were favorable. "He will land in France, will experience a little galley of new arrivals, but his talent, perseverance, willingness to show what he could and wanted to know and share the wealth inherited from the Berber heritage and transmitted by the ancestors, will give him the land and mark it open the doors of a field while beauty and wealth, where the mixing of cultures does wonders. Proud of its Berber identity, Younis Benyahia do not lock it, quite the contrary, he uses it to open the world and make it known. Loving the colors, sharing and art, he uses admirably to express the beautiful colors of his native Kabylia to Through his works, and giving lessons in calligraphy or painting workshops, instead of sharing and exchange, where the password is art, whatever its identity in all its splendor ...
L'Expression: Tell us a bit about yourself Younis Benyahia: Speaking of my course is a fairly typical year, this is not due to the fact that I am confronted daily with journalists stalk me, so I am known and recognized, but it's just an ego of artist who likes to present his modest way of life, oh! how full of surprises, meetings, discoveries, illusions and disillusion ... and for that, I would say that the richness of a work and its value in beauty is matched only by the experiences of its creator. After Chugging into final for the second time, I decided to return to the Fine Arts on the advice of a friend who was also my art teacher in high school. The heights of
Azazga, Tizi Ouzou, offered an ideal framework for creating, in the old abandoned cabins of the colonial era. I spent the academic year 1992/1993, was the second year of this school and its last until its reopening in 1999. At the closing of the School of Fine Arts Azazga, I enrolled at the School of Constantine, where I finished my studies.
In 1997, I enrolled at the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Algiers until 2000 when I interrupted my studies to go to France, where the prospects of success and creative space were favorable.
What are the highlights of this journey?
The most memorable moments are, certainly, during the year I spent at the Beaux-Arts Azazga. Was all new to me. The setting was pleasant and the difficulties encountered at that time during my studies (lack of teaching resources and financial), gave a special taste in my early days in this medium.
Constantine was also a milestone for me. It was the first time I found myself in a big city and not just any city of the Rock and suspension bridges. It was just wonderful, Constantine ...
I was able to meet other talents from other parts of Algeria, and for the first time, I realized cultural differences that made the richness of my country.
Tell us about your work in association Awal Grand Lyon?
Arriving in France, I started making small sizes (landscapes, portraits and calligraphy) to live. That's what introduced me to the association "Awal Grand Lyon", and many other associations working in the cultural and social field, to discover the Berber culture in general and Algeria in particular, through workshops at the Berber Spring, and many other programs on "Discoveries Berber."
In 2005, I organized, in collaboration with this association, a workshop exploring
the architecture of the Kabyle house, "through which we had made a model with children from immigrant families.
2 years, every year I am invited by the Union of Muslim families in Marseille to celebrate the feast of Eid through calligraphy workshops Berber in the company of other artists, calligraphers, writers, filmmakers, writers ...
Why this choice of the abstract in your work?
Why abstract? Search well, why I came to abstract painting, I look through my childhood memories when I watched the uneven texture of a wall, a door worn by time, shapes of clouds that change , rocks that sometimes take the form of animals or simply forms that conjured nothing. This fueled my imagination, but not my creativity because I had not the notion of art.
Before turning to abstract creations, my training was academic Fine Arts, which led me to do many paintings figurative, at the time of my schooling, to have pocket money and my debut in France in order to survive. My collaboration with associations such as "Grand Lyon Awal" led me to discover the Berber script (Tifinagh) and Berber symbols through the tattoo, wallpaper, and other areas of crafts and as cave drawings.
Hence, my work has evolved into a composition of more abstract where I just keep most of what I loved as impressions of those textures of rough walls, these landscapes architectural firm to the changing lights.
Do you have a message to convey through your work?
My works do not convey a particular message, except my life, through all its states and sensations which are constantly evolving. I also give classes in drawing, painting, and I run workshops in order to discover certain aspects of my culture and share the passion to create.
Why these colors too bright, and mitigated?
My vision is vivid, somehow, to feel more or less strong, or sounds more or less acute or severe. It is also a powerful means of communication and even that may be in certain situations, aggressive, and lacking in moderation. Harmony is, to some extent, the wisdom not to be questioned by the force of contrast or color, but by the sweetness and repose that comes from reading it.
Why this recurrent theme of the city and the use of forms?
Since I was born and grew up in a remote village in the mountains of Kabylia, I found the city very late and this is not just any city. It Constantine the capital of my ancestors, with its history, its architecture, its bridges, its contrasts. The forms used (square, curve, or half circle) are the most representative and abstract at once. Representative because they are the forms that comprise all constructions. And abstract, because it is the very abstraction of all these buildings once broken. Between heaven and these architectures are found in all cultures and in all cities in ways that often resemble (minarets, steeples, arrows, pyramids) and rising to a unit.
Have you been to Algeria? My only
Exhibitions in Algeria dates back to when I was a student, group exhibitions with other students of Fine Arts.
A final word?
I do not waste my wish that one day my paintings hanging on the walls of art galleries in my country, like so many other artists.
Samira Bendris
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