Mouna Bakouli is a Moroccan artist (born in 1992 in Casablanca) who graduated in 2018 from the Villa Arson and was awarded the City of Nice’s Prix de la Jeune Création in 2018.
She produces drawings, paintings and sculptures that she thinks of as fragments and then organises as a kind of super-organism or an aborted totality. She uses recovery materials (waste) on which she intervenes graphically to create figuration that ranges from the medical field (anatomy charts) to advertising and graffiti.
The evocative and poetic power of her works arises from their ambiguity, which can be found in their titles as well as their contents. Her works are populated by macabre representations (skeletons and injured bodies).
Mouna Bakouli was chosen for this scholarship from a shortlist of fourteen young artists who graduated from Villa Arson in 2018 and 2019, and distinguished themselves through their practice of painting and drawing: Raphaël Barrois, Elsa Belbacha Lardy, Hugo Bench, Beatrice Celli, Johan Christ Bertrand, Basile Ghosn, Maeva Grapain, Damian Junges, Celeste Lerouxel, Clémence Mauger, Elvire Menetrier, Amentia Siard Brochard and Janna Zhiri.
The scholarship has given rise to an exhibition entitled ‘Mwen malad aw’, created in situ by the artist, which will be on view until 12 January 2020.
