Nour Edinne Jarram - Wit abstract wezen - Sold

Nour Eddine Jarram (Casablanca [Morocco], April 18, 1956).

Education

sex   1975 – 1978 Ecole des Beaux Arts, Casablanca, Morocco

sex   1979 – 1983 Academy for Arts and Industry, Enschede, The Netherlands

grants

sex   1984 Starting Grant, National Foundation for Fine Arts, Design and Architecture

sex   1985, 1988, 1993, 1997, 2000 Working Grant, National Foundation for Fine Arts, Design and Architecture

sex   2005, 2010, 2016 Grant, National Foundation for Fine Arts, Design and Architecture

Awards

sex   Winner Royal Award for Free Painting 1988, presented by Queen Beatrix, Royal Palace Amsterdam

Lectureship

sex   1988 Guest Lecture at the Academy of Arts and Design, Den Bosch

Member of Jury National Foundation Enschede

sex   2003-2005 Member of Jury National Monument Fireworks Disaster Enschede

Work by Nour-Eddine Jarram is represented in, among others, the following museum and corporate collections

Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede

Municipal Museum Schiedam, Schiedam

Castle Twickel, Delden

Print Cabinet Leiden, Leiden

Teylers Museum Haarlem, Haarlem

KPN art collection, The Hague

TNT Post Art Collection, The Hague

Collection Ahold

Collection Bart Spoorenberg, Haarlem

CBK Southeast, Amsterdam

various private collectors

Rijksmuseum Twente

From 19 November 2020 to 9 May 2021, the extensive solo exhibition 'Beeldenstorm' by Nour-Eddine Jarram (1956) can be seen in Rijksmuseum Twenthe. Jarram came to Enschede from Morocco in the late 1970s to study at the renowned AKI art academy. He never left Enschede again and to this day works on a rich oeuvre that can count on (inter)national recognition.

The title of the exhibition, Beeldenstorm, evokes all sorts of historical and current associations, but it also mainly relates to Jarram's development as an artist. This development begins in Morocco, where he grew up with a visual culture that was determined by decoration rather than figuration. Depicting God and living beings is not part of the Islamic tradition, so artistic expressions were mainly characterized by geometric patterns and decorative lines. But Jarram had a great urge to portray the world and those who inhabit it. He looked for new examples to relate to and found them in Dutch 17th-century painting, such as the landscapes of Jacob van Ruisdael, and in Christian scenes of Jesus and Mary, and other Biblical scenes. He 'borrowed' motifs from these paintings, as he puts it himself. "To own something that doesn't belong to you." In Jarram's case, that was the 'image'. In his drawings, mostly made in charcoal and pastel, Islamic characters merge with Dutch landscapes, and Biblical figures with surrealistic motifs. Like an ethnographer, he went in search of the meanings of all those images, but at the same time he gave them new meanings.

Victory of the figuration

Conquering the figuration felt like a battle for a long time, but around 2015 there was a tipping point. The fight was over and all the images that had been hiding in a corner of his mind flowed out. He started making portraits of people, mostly in watercolor. He focused on subjects with which he was involved, such as the many refugees who tried to reach Europe from Africa. On his way to the promised land, in search of new opportunities, just like himself when he left Casablanca for Enschede. This period also marked the beginning of his Moroccan youngsters, portraits of young people with Moroccan roots. The selfies these young people post on Facebook are the source of inspiration for this series, which Jarram is still working on to this day. They are psychological portraits of boys and girls in search of an attitude and identity in a turbulent time.

Building monuments

But the title Beeldenstorm is not only about the artistic path that Jarram has taken. Iconoclasm irrevocably evokes associations with the destruction of statues, as happened in the 16th century during the Reformation, and as it still happens today with alleged patriotic heroes being pulled from their pedestals. Through images, history is not only given a face, but history is also made. And sometimes that history needs to be revised or supplemented. 'Actually, in my work I am constantly trying to correct history,' says Jarram. He does not do this by tearing down statues, but by building new monuments. Such as with the pastel Le soldat inconnu (2008), with which he gave a face to the Moroccan men who fought for freedom during the Second World War. Or with his recent watercolor A tribute to the dead (2020): an ode to the Sudanese poet Abdel Wahab Youssif, who died during his crossing from Africa to Europe, on his way to a new life and on his way to beautiful new things he had can create.

The exhibition Beeldenstorm shows works that were created in the period from 2007 to 2020. From the earlier, large surreal pastel drawings with a mixture of motifs, via the Dutch landscapes enriched with Islamic motifs, to the recent watercolors by Moroccan youngsters and Africans in search of a better life.

Sources:

https://noureddinejarram.nl/

https://www.rijksmuseumtwenthe.nl/content/2726/nl/nour-eddine-jarram-beeldenstorm

https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/42009

Jacobs 1993, vol. 1, p. 560