Les ailes bleues des Anges, 2022, Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm. Credit: © Rachid Koraïchi and Factum Arte. Courtesy October Gallery London. Photo: Oak Taylor Smith.

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.

Free

Opening hours

Tue – Sat: 12.30 – 17.30

Location:

24 Old Gloucester Street
London, WC1N 3AL

Text and pictures, copyright october gallery and the artist