“ALCHYMIA” by Yassine Meknache

18 November 2017 - 14 January 2018

Yassine Meknache presents “ALCHYMIA” at the Château du Domaine départemental de Chamarande in France from November 18, 2017 until January 14, 2018.

In this solo exhibition, the artist showcases paintings and videos from his series of works inspired by the “Conference of the Birds” poems by Farid ud-Din Attar (Attar of Nishapur).

In 2007, Yassine Mekhnache started painting on canvases of woven cotton, hand-made by women embroiderers in Tamesloht, a small village near Marrakech, Morocco. He has grouped these paintings under the name “La Conférence des Oiseaux” (The Conference of the Birds), a reference to 12^th Century’s poem by Sufi Persian philosopher and poet Farid ud-Din Attar (Attar of Nishapur) in which thirty pilgrim birds take on a spiritual journey that will lead them to Simurgh, their king, a Persian gigantic mythical bird somehow comparable to the Greek Mythological Phoenix. The poem is an allegory of the Sufi journey to realisation of the nature of God, and each bird conveys a specific meaning, fault and tale for the reader to draw lessons from.