NADJIB BEN ALI

Driven by a de-hierarchization of cultural categories, Nadjib Ben Ali’s painting explores the intersection between human emotion, dramatic archetypes and their 21st-century visual expressions. Tapping into both popular, counter-cultural references and the dramatic choreography of historical painting, his compositions draw inspiration from soccer, rap videos, horror films, and B-movie slashers. 

Ben Ali selects and manipulates his images digitally using computer and smartphone screens as tools. Pushed to their chromatic and luminous extremes, these digital creations serve as starting points for his paintings. He reimagines and distorts epic and affective moments from soccer games, adding a visceral, dramatic intensity. Imbued with a universal sense of drama, his works echo themes from the arenas of ancient games to epic narratives harking back to Greek and Shakespearean tragedies. Soccer players are transformed into spectral figures, their faces fragmented into vibrant, acidic hues that evoke a haunting, sepulchral quality—where sports imagery collides with the macabre world of horror films.

Figures are isolated, their facial features obscured by thick, solid colors, creating a sense of confinement and tension. Faces, dazed or taut with nervous energy, and bodies, slumped in exhaustion or contemplation, recall a vast iconographic tradition. These works span narratives from classical tragedies to the everyday struggles of existence, laced with a touch of absurdity—the hallmark of contemporary tragedy. His choice of counterbalanced titles underscores this complexity. In Ben Ali's paintings, whether referencing rap videos, monstrous horror film imagery, or fallen sports heroes, tragedy resides in subtle interstices, between the hyper-saturated colors and the raw emotional weight of the scenes. His art is a theatrical, almost apocalyptic playing out of human drama, where every element contributes to a vivid, tragic sensibility.

Nadjib Ben Ali (b. 1994) graduated with honors from the École Supérieure d’Art et Design de Saint-Etienne in 2019. His recent solo exhibitions were held at The Cabin, Los Angeles (2023, U.S.) and Le POCTB, Orléans (2022, France). His work has been shown as part of institutional group shows such as Voir en peinture, MASC, Les Sables d’Olonne, Musée Estrine, Saint-Rémy de Provence and Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dole (2023, France); Glad to take height and see the slow motion world, Jeune Création, Romainville (2021, France); Novembre à Vitry, Galerie municipale Jean Collet, Vitry sur Seine (2019, France); Le jour suivant, Cité du Design, Saint-Étienne (2019, France).