ArchiveExhibition

Rachid Koraïchi: Celestial Blue

7 Mar-13 Apr 2024
PV 6 Mar 2024, 6-8.30pm

October Gallery

London WC1N 3AL

Overview

October Gallery presents Celestial Blue, a solo exhibition of new works by the renowned artist Rachid Koraïchi. Born in the Aurès mountains of Algeria, Koraïchi’s creative explorations have employed an impressive range of media, which include paintings on canvas, paper and silk, bronze, wood and steel sculptures, ceramics and textiles. Koraïchi’s abiding fascination with signs of all kinds is the unwavering constant informing his conscious and finely detailed work.

In accordance with Koraïchi’s predilection for the magical number 7 – considered significant in all the major traditions – Celestial Blue celebrates the artist’s 77th year. This exhibition includes canvas works interspersed with statuesque steel sculptures, in his characteristically figurative forms. The works on canvas are inspired by the nasibs that the 12th century Sufi mystic and writer, Ibn ‘Arabi, set down in his book of love poems, The Interpreter of Desires (1215). Each large, square canvas presents an original design produced in white on an indigo blue ground that improvises upon one of the original poems. Rather than being a direct translation, each work becomes a sustained reflection on the profundity of Ibn ‘Arabi’s original vision, offering a visual correlative to the ideas expressed in a modified, entirely contemporary form.

Artists

Rachid Koraïchi

Algerian, b. 1947

Nearby

Sang Woo Kim: The Seer, The Seen

Herald St | Museum St

Fred Kormis: Sculpting the Twentieth Century

The Wiener Holocaust Library

Picasso: printmaker

The British Museum

Self-Made: Reshaping Identities

The Foundling Museum

Dinghong Dan: Still Mad

Diane Howse: Ornament of Dust

Vivienne Roberts Projects

Paul Housley: Discipline of Ecstasy

Cedric Bardawil

Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights

Wellcome Collection

Pontone Gallery

Vardaxoglou Gallery

Lenore Tawney & Toshiko Takaezu: A Remarkable Friendship

Medieval Women: In Their Own Words

British Library

Es Devlin: CONGREGATION

Monet and London. Views of the Thames

William Wright: The Wreathed Trellis

Triple Threat, curated by Hilton Als

Maximillian William

59 (Vladimir Umanetz)

George Shaw: Albion Groans Part 1

Anthony Wilkinson