For her second exhibition at the SLOW Galerie, Nejma Bourouaha presents autumn in a gentle light: ‘Les clapotis’ celebrates the rain with poetry and lightness.
The works on display feature the irresistibly charming little animals characteristic of Nejma’s drawings, in a multitude of compositions centred on raindrops: rabbits, cats and foxes shelter from it with a variety of original umbrellas, or huddle together—alone or in groups—in cosy little interiors to watch the downpour through the window, or simply enjoy being out in the rain, in the coolness of a shower that doesn’t stop them from sharing a picnic. Whether heavy or light, the rain is never threatening, but rather a pretext for endless variations and the emergence of unexpected scenes, imbued with poetry and mischief, like miniature stories. The compositions—whether in tiny formats tucked away in small boxes, or in dazzling large-scale works—invite us to pay attention to what is not immediately visible, to seek out the hidden little detail brimming with wit and whimsy.
The delicacy and precision of the lines, drawn with brushes that spend days, and sometimes even weeks, crafting these scenes with patience and meticulous care, reveal to us, once again, the illustrator’s talent for rendering textures and intricate patterns: the softness of an animal’s coat, the patterns on an umbrella, the refinement of a crocheted curtain, the tangled foliage, or even a curtain of rain that borders on abstraction. Nejma’s very special way of painting with tiny brushstrokes lends itself wonderfully to illustrating the movement of the rain.
In Nejma’s paintings, autumn has a certain warmth to it: just as sunflowers, like ‘a hundred suns’, illuminate a grey sky, touches of bright colour light up the compositions from within, suggesting that the rain brings its own share of light. But it is also a pretext for finding comfort, whether in the warmth of one’s own home or snuggled up with loved ones. There is always, in Nejma’s illustrations, a thread of tenderness – that delicate bond woven between beings. With as much gentleness as depth, these little animals speak to us of the beauty of inhabiting the world poetically, and tell us that we need not fear the raindrops, for they carry with them – depending on how we look at them – a multitude of poetic images.
Text by Juliette Capieu