Fares Thabet's Dreamlike Landscapes Emerge from Tunisian Roots and Personal Journeys

Fares Thabet's recent exhibition 'Un bâteau, sans naufrage et sans étoile' at Selma Feriani Gallery in Tunis showcased new canvases inspired by a winter trip to Algeria, his mother's homeland. Born in 1982 in Hammamet, Tunisia, Thabet spent childhood years in Madrid after his mother moved the family there when he was nine. He later studied ceramics at the Francisco Alcántara School of Ceramics and fine arts at Complutense University of Madrid, where he developed his painting practice influenced by Henri Matisse's Moroccan works, Francis Alÿs, and Abbas Kiarostami. After graduation, he returned to Tunisia to revive his father's pottery workshop, painting privately for a decade until discovered by gallerist Selma Feriani in 2020. His first solo show 'On a Blade of Grass' in 2021 gave him confidence to focus exclusively on painting. Thabet's studio is located in the bay of Tunis near Carthage ruins, where he transforms local landscapes through imaginative color schemes, often using low-quality black-and-white photographs as references without preparatory sketches. His works like 'Départ' (2024) and 'Le soleil défonce les songes et les chimères' (2024) feature vibrant, dreamlike scenes with lone figures or abandoned cities, bearing traces of Giorgio de Chirico's eerie atmospheres. Literature, particularly poet Derek Walcott, inspires his non-verbal painting process that emphasizes color harmony and intuitive expression.