The work of artist-painter Said Cherraj: a dazzling palette

Like a magician, the Moroccan artist-painter Said Cherraj, who lives and works in Tangier, creates often surprising compositions full of poetry, but always bewitching. He appears with all his series of works as an artist who takes pleasure in painting as evidenced by the drips of the material and the changes of rhythm in the gestures: sometimes balanced and sober, sometimes lyrical and unleashed. His impressionist, expressionist, landscape, horse portraits or even abstract works irresistibly evoke this saying of Cézanne: “Art is a harmony parallel to nature”.

The universe of the self-taught artist-painter Said Cheraj, native of Sidi Abdderrazak, in the region of Tiflet, we sense him, moves away from the distressing reality, made of insecurity, violence, fanaticism, to propose an approach invigorating and peaceful, a Baudelairean invitation to travel. Thus in his works, we find a dazzling palette where the reds, yellows, greens and blues seem to come out of the circumscribed space of the canvases to draw the viewer into a chromatic whirlwind. We feel struck by his paintings which then use rather dark colors, reflecting a heavy atmosphere. Like a musician, he elaborates variations on such and such a theme.
Through small brushstrokes, his paintings represent both the direct expression of a subject and the sensation felt by the eye of the viewer, more abstract. His original and graphic works combine striking decomposition, bright colors, varied forms, expressionism and impressionism. The main thing is in the light, which represents life and gives her a particular well-being when she paints, flying towards abstraction.
Just as in writing, the letters of the alphabet constitute a tool of communication with the intellect, in the abstract compositions of our artist, it is shapes and colors. This composition has the power to speak to the soul of whoever looks at it in silence and without the unnecessary intervention of the artist. It carries within it its authentic meaning; it is enough for the one who looks at it to understand this truth.
During the realization of the work, the only concern of the artist is the search for balance. The creative force manifests itself through it, it is at the service of this ideal, it is the link between the invisible and the visible, the immaterial and the material. In fact, Said Cherraj draws his inspiration from the irrational, which is why his abstract works do not address the intellect of the viewer, they speak to his soul through shapes and colors, which one can possibly consider as a “pictorial alphabet” functioning in the same way as musical notes.
In short, his works announce themselves as an effervescence of renewed sensations and charged with charm. And over time, our artist creates a universe of emotions materialized by colors and shapes. It relies on its own fertile ground of themes and subjects and appeals to the imagination, its precious tool, granting it the leading role and allowing it to frolic in complete freedom and fantasy. He also trusts this rich substratum of varied materials which smolder within him in the depths of his psyche and which is made up of memories, significant experiences, dreams, ideals, a whole personal symbolism.
It must be said that his pictorial work is a perpetual quest for the senses. He went through all the universal schools of plastic arts and touched all styles. Today, he focuses his thinking on the notion of painting detached from any reference to representation. A universe where he is the only one to conceive a work specifically for the space it occupies and which breaks radically with representation. This is how he creates escapes, spaces of freedom and enjoyment, at the heart of his in-depth research, his highly spiritual poetic flights.
Technically too, Said Cherraj will then explore space, dynamite matter, explode colors, install plans, metamorphose supports, trace paths and passages, awaken one color, drown another, illuminate one point and plunge another. in the dark, he covers or spares, he crumples, crushes. In order to galvanize the emotions, art, as a creation, claims to elevate the observer to a transcendent state of lucidity. If this can be done, the artist has achieved his goal. It’s as if this visual artist is no longer satisfied with flatness and seeks to rush through volume, the imposing weave that rhymes with the often cheerful and blissful excellence of saying.

Ayoub Akil