Gallery anne barrault is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of Neïla Czermak Ichti who has just graduated from the École supérieure d’art & de design in Marseille.
Through drawings and paintings, she depicts her family and her friends. The representation of apparently ordinary and trivial scenes refers to her beliefs, her cultures, and takes on magical and invisible dimensions which are influenced by popular culture.
On this occasion, we are delighted to present to you the first publication dedicated to the artist which will be published by Éditions P.
Certain images represent already existing forms, perhaps recognizable as figures, mouths, faces, bodies. We recognize them as fixed identities, given as such, we recognize them as belonging to strata of a population that finds itself already represented everywhere : in magazines, on television, in museums… as if it all goes without saying.
Other paintings represent oracles.
If Neïla Czermak wouldn’t exist through her dreams, her fantasies, her crossing the gates of time, we would still be here to identify the same bodies, as a given fact. Whereas often the truth lies elsewhere.
Her way of painting everyday scenes, whilst “twisting » them, is such a real way of talking about stories that are often forgotten and taken for granted, once again. Neïla Czermak proves that nothing can be taken for granted, that it is necessary to draw attention to the little monster sleeping under our beds or the sentence pronounced (was she telling the truth?) by a grandmother on the other side of the Mediterranean.
For through the appearance of a clown, monstrous horns, a robotic hand, or even a Dragon Ball Z figurine, the painter invites us to redefine our certainties about the invisible world, to politicize our words and to be interested in deceiving our certainties – in a way that is both visionary and pays homage to our mothers, but also to our brothers, often dehumanized, and our sisters, often misunderstood.
Neila Czermak’s paintings replace hope in a right way by speaking about us, while at the same time placing weirdness as a radical position and way of being in the world. Perhaps this is the moment not to go back to normal, but rather to trust signs, chance and everything that is impossible to explain.
The other paintings represent oracles.
And finally, the other paintings do more than just represent, they announce an ending, perhaps of the one of identity, to open up to other urban possibilities, while celebrating them.
Tarek Lakhrissi, 2020
With support for galleries / first exhibition of the Centre national des arts plastiques 
airbrush acrylic on wood
50 x 70 cm