Dualité

Two 113X58cm 87x37cm  oil on cloth, Dualité by Youssef El Khorib 

The art work explores figures of duality as two figures more like emotional presences unfold across different backgrounds. Their elongated faces, simplified bodies, and oversized hands create a language that is instinctive rather than realistic, giving the painting a raw immediacy. They appear connected yet distant while sharing the same space. The bold outlines and flattened colors recall a folk or symbolic visual language, where expression comes through gesture and contrast rather than detail. Reds, greens, ochres and deep blues vibrate against the pale background, allowing the figures to emerge with a quiet intensity. The asymmetry of the eyes and features gives them a fragile humanity, while the animal-like form below anchors the composition in something dreamlike and instinctual.

The artist's sense of innocence in present in his brushwork — direct, unpolished, and emotionally open as if the painting values feeling over perfection. The result is both playful and unsettling, balancing tenderness with estrangement, presence with distortion.

About the Artist: Youssef El Khorib is a self taught artist born in1963 in Morocco. He paints as a way to apprehend the everyday life far from the usual mundane. His universe is a perpetual swing between dream and reality. Working with a vibrant palette and recurring motifs, his paintings are animated by bold, expressive brushwork. Faces, signs, minarets, rowboats, and donkeys appear throughout his work, woven into lively and richly textured compositions.