Berirouche Feddal is full of energy. The interview in his Mile-End studio has barely begun when the Montreal artist of Kabyle origin – a detail which is very important here, we will come back to it later – opens up about the work on which he is working. hard work and which represents Emir Abdelkader, this Algerian scholar and resistance fighter from the 19the century who fought against French colonization, whose wisdom he praises. This combines wood engraving, pyrography and oil pastel. “Tones of white, something reminiscent of the humanitarian white flag, of humanity, will dominate the shades of blue, pink, and red,” he says.
The silences of Humanity, resonance of a forgotten kindnesse thus contrasts with all of his work, often very catchy and colorful. “Colors are always a common thread in his practice, because they take him back to his childhood, to his family,” underlines Soad Carrier, director of the McBride Contemporary gallery which the artist has just joined. Berirouche Feddal’s next two exhibitions, one at the Montreal gallery from April 25, the other at the L’Imagier exhibition center in Gatineau from May 3, in fact dialogue between blue and pink, two colors greatly meaningful to him. Politics, too. In this regard, the gallery owner welcomes her protégé’s reflection on what is happening around him.
“When I was in Algeria in 2019 during the Hirak [mouvement d’opposition à la candidature d’Abdelaziz Bouteflika pour un cinquième mandat présidentiel], there were all these blue, torn posters of faces. This blue was omnipresent, but it seemed out of phase to me,” he explains. For Berirouche Feddal, blue is bitter. ” He is everywhere. It also exists in a kind of politics and in many things that make me melancholy,” adds the artist. And adds: “We often use the adjective “resilient” to describe people, but I think it applies better to objects. It is this resilience that the pigment possesses. »
Berirouche Feddal has understood this committed and engaging form of colors since he discovered contemporary art after a career in the history of civilizations. Having obtained his diplomas in visual art at Cégep Marie-Victorin and then in printed art at Concordia University, the artist embarked on the adventure even though he had never really painted in his life. “We can create beauty with art, but by studying the history of contemporary art, I understood that we could also manipulate many things,” he says. Since 2020, the artist has explored the political and the personal, and different materials. “I like to mix everything so that it becomes visual poetry. »
Pink is a living color
A bit like black and white can be yin and yang, Berirouche Feddal likes to find a balance between pink and blue. His upcoming exhibition at McBride Contemporary, My bougainvillea is in a deep sleep, is, in fact, tinged with pink. “I’ve been using pink for a very long time, it’s very jovial. For me, pink is play. When I was young, I put bougainvillea flowers everywhere, I decorated cars, doors, etc. », remembers the one who has been around this floral tree with magenta petals since a young age.
At the moment, Berirouche Feddal is also focusing on a work which represents Mohamed Bouazizi, “the Tunisian salesman who embodies the essence of the Arab Spring which he provoked in 2011” by killing himself by self-immolation. Somewhere between life and death, there is Ben Ali, president of Tunisia at the time, at the bedside of the martyr, the sacrificed. “The bougainvillea is still there, it covers the characters,” says Berirouche. In the artist’s mind, pink is therefore also synonymous with the end, with eternity. “When death is accepted, everything becomes rosy. » When he says these words, he immediately remembers the death of his first dog. “When he died, I bought a bougainvillea and it started losing all its flowers from the first day,” he says. Going through a deep inner crisis, he suddenly began to believe that winter was only passing through. “Spring will return,” he repeated to himself.
What better time than spring to present these two exhibitions? “It’s when the flowers bloom, when people come out to demonstrate. There is something considerable about spring, very human,” he confides. According to him, humanity is at the dawn of the new season, literally and figuratively. “Everyone is going to wake up and fight for causes that are important to them. Blue and pink will then play a creative personal role, but also a humanitarian role on a larger scale. » The artist is convinced of this. “We will see what will happen with Palestine, Ukraine, Congo,” he points out.
What could her sisters and brothers do in the current situation in the world? “Artists cannot make mistakes, they have a job to do, which is to fill their time by sending a message, a catharsis, making people connect so that they feel less alone in this great battle”, responds Berirouche Feddal close to postcolonial and indigenous stories thanks to his Algerian and Kabyle roots. “Through its past, Algeria carries a revolution within it and since I was educated in that, there is in me this desire to offer the revolution with art,” he maintains.
Because he therefore advocates a return to his sources, it seems natural for Berirouche Feddal that childhood takes precedence through his works. “We see it in our societies: children’s rights are disappearing,” he says. The artist, however, prefers to sketch them carefree. In the painting Children feed on my tears, children have fun and simply live. “No matter the violence around him, the child plays,” he finally concludes. The wisdom of humanity, after all.