Slimen El Kamel (b. 1983, Tunisia) studied at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Tunis, which allowed him to crystalize this literary and intellectual heritage into a singular artistic practice. A practice whose genesis opens through a writing and draws its resources from its texts, sometimes poetic or literary, sometimes memorial or improvised. The daily writing exercise, while it delimits, extends the horizons of its physical universe. Nurtured in the popular narrative, his childhood was molded by the imagination of the rural environment where the tradition of folk tales and poetry flourished. Not far from free figuration, the artist questions the relationship between the real and the imaginary through the dramatization of the constellated image. The figure of a Levite reality in the space of an imagination of a proliferating proliferation where is played a transfiguration of the social and popular fact in a surrealistic vision. Images of memory, of a reality taken from everyday media, intersect in a pictorial field where, on the surface of a picture, the rustling of a dialogue begins without end, not for the narrative of a fact, But for a festival of narrative.
Solo exhibitions include A Coeur Ouvert, l’institut du monde arabe, Paris (2021); Under the skin, Sulger Buel Gallery, London (2018); Carapace ArtyShow, Tunis (2011).
Group exhibitions include Group Expo Safia Farhat Museum, Radès, Tunisia (2024); Group Expo Yosr Ben Ammar Gallery Tunisia (2024); Group Expo Nil gallery Paris (2024); Group Expo “animal kingdom” Kloser art projects ,biennale de Dakar (2024); Official Selection Biennale of Dakar Senegal 2024 "The Wake " (2024); 1.54 Art Fair London, Nil Gallery (2024); Abu Dhabi Art Fair, Nil Gallery (2024); Expo Chicago USA, Nil Gallery (2024); 1.54 Art Fair Marrakesh, Nil Gallery (2024); Group Expo " L’Extase d’être vivant" Yosr Ben Ammar Gallery Tunisia (2023); Modernité Arab Museum Mohamed 6, Rabat, Morocco (2023); Akaa Art Fair Paris (Yosr ben Ammar Gallery) (2023); Sp-Arte Sao Paulo Brazil (Nil Gallery) (2023); Abu Dhabi Art Fair (Lalalande Gallery) (2022); Investec Cape Town Art Fair (Agorgi Gallery) (2020); 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, New York (Sulger-Buel Gallery) (2020); The future of SOFA, Chicago (Sulger-Buel Gallery) (2020); 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, London (Sulger-Buel Gallery) (2020); Welcome home, Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (2019); (MACAAL), Marrakech, Morocco (2019); Contemporary Tunisian Aesthetics, Museum of Modern Art, Kuwait (2019); the box , El Marsa Gallery, Tunis (2019); ST'ART, Strasbourg (Lalalande Gallery) (2019); YIA ART FAIR, Paris (Lalalande Gallery) (2019); 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, New York (Sulger-Buel Gallery) (2019); 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Marrakech (Sulger-Buel Gallery) (2019); 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, London (Agorgi Gallery) (2018); Dakar Biennale, Senegal (2018); Contemporary Art Fair, Marrakech (Sulger-Buel Gallery) (2018); NOW, Sulger-Buel Gallery, London (2017); Trop Comprendre curated by Andrew Lamprecht, Sulger-Buel gallery, London (2017); NOW Slimen El Kamel & Neill Wright (Sulger-Buel Gallery) (2017); 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair – London (Agorgi Gallery) (2017); Art Paris Art Fair (Agorgi Gallery) (2017); AKAA Art Fair (Sulger-Buel Gallery) (2017); 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Marrakech (Sulger-Buel Gallery) (2017); Cape Town Art Fair (Sulger-Buel Gallery) (2017); Turbine Art Fair (Sulger-Buel Gallery) (2017); Yesterday is Tomorrow’s Memory, El Marsa Gallery, Dubai (2016); Group Exhibition, Elbirou Gallery, Sousse, Tunisia (2016); Art Dubai (El Marsa Gallery) (2016); 1.54 Contemporary African Art Fair, London (Agorgi Gallery) (2016); Talan, Tunis (2015).
Highlights and collections
Artistic residency at the Blachère Foundation, Senegal (2018); Award winner of the Cachan’s biennale, France (2016); Nominated for the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) Art Prize, Dubai (2016); Artistic residency at the Centre des Arts Vivants de Rades, Tunis 2009.
His work can be found in Private Collections in Paris, London, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, NY, Johannesburg, Marrakech, Beirut; Blachère Foundation, France; Alain Servais collection, Belgium Blavy collection, Paris; Pas-chaudoir d’Art Contemporain d’Afrique et sa Diaspora ,Belgium Kamel Lazaar Foundation, Tunisia; Gandur, Switzerland; Musée d'Art Contemporain Africain Al Maaden, MACAAL, Morocco; C 21 Museum, USA; Collection Alberto Cortina; Collection David H. Brolliet, Genève et Dakar.