Untitled

Mohammed Melehi is regarded as one of the most important figures of the modern Moroccan art scene. Melehi was born in the northern coastal town of Asilah in 1936, where his early interest in art was nurtured while growing up in a socially diverse environment. At the age of nineteen, Melehi left Morocco to study art, first in Seville and Madrid, and later in Rome in 1957. It was there that he achieved the distinction of being the first African-Arab artist to exhibit at pioneering gallery Topazia Alliata, noted for its display of avant-garde art. Melehi’s explorations of transnational abstraction led to his appointment as assistant professor at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 1962. He eventually relocated to New York to pursue studies on a Rockefeller scholarship at Columbia University and gained recognition from partaking in the 1963 Hard Edge and Geometric Painting and Sculpture group exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Upon his return to Morocco a year later, he was appointed professor at the Casablanca School of Fine Arts. There, he played a pivotal role in establishing a pioneering postcolonial arts platform alongside fellow artists Mohamed Ataallah, Farid Belkahia, Mohammed Chabâa, Mostafa Hafid and Mohamed Hamidi, which came to fruition with the groundbreaking Présence Plastique street exhibition in 1969. The Casablanca Art School became a hub for free experimentation, lively political discourse, and enthusiastic exchange, marking a significant departure in the evolution of Moroccan Modernism from the pre-existing dominant European perspective on the country's art scene.

As both a pedagogue and artist, Melehi called for a revival of Moroccan identity, culture, and values, laying the foundation for a new generation of artists. Informed by traditional Moroccan arts, crafts and architecture, particularly the intricate patterning of Amazigh textiles, Melehi developed them into a new visual language that was characterised by geometric shapes and and vibrant colours.

Painted in 2018, the present work is one of Melehi’s more recent compositions and radiates with the depth and intensity of colour that reflects the artist’s enduring exploration of chromatic dimensionality. At its core lies the iconic wave motif—rendered with meticulous precision in tonal gradations of black and golden dark ochre against a vibrant red background. This piece exemplifies Melehi’s continual reimagining of the wave, a form he regarded as a vital symbol within Afro-Arab visual cultures. Here, the wave is thoughtfully integrated with architectural references and artisanal heritage—most notably through the mashrabiya. The mashrabiya—a traditional element of Islamic architecture—is crafted using a wood-turning technique to form intricate latticework across windows, doors, and screens. Found throughout homes in the Islamic world, including Morocco, it serves both a functional and spiritual purpose, offering privacy, shade, and a space for quiet contemplation. In Melehi’s work, it becomes a symbolic bridge between cultural heritage and contemporary abstraction.

Mohamed Melehi’s works are part of important international institutions worldwide including as Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2017, Melehi was honoured with a retrospective exhibition at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha and was most recently featured in The Casablanca Art School exhibition that travelled from Tate St Ives to the Sharjah Art Foundation in 2023-2024.