Yacout Hamdouch
Born in 1994 in Casablanca, Yacout Hamdouch has developed an artistic practice deeply rooted in experimentation and in a continual questioning of established certainties. Guided by a keen sensibility and a constant drive for learning, she conceives creation as an evolving process, shaped by experience and freed from any sense of finality. This stance led her to train under the Italian artist Nicola Salvatore, whom she regards as a decisive mentor in her artistic journey. Under his guidance, she joined the Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, where she further expanded her practice through new influences, combining academic instruction, artistic discovery, and international exchange.
Her work draws upon a constellation of personal recollections, shaped by her childhood in Morocco, her immersion in Italy, and the diverse experiences that have marked her path. Through a variety of media such as painting, wood, and glass, Yacout Hamdouch explores the mechanisms of memory, seeking to restore its sensitive and subjective dimension. Her works express a desire to capture the fragility and transience of remembrance, oscillating between precision and distortion, in a constant pursuit of sincerity. By questioning the processes through which mental images are perceived and preserved, she offers a subtle reflection on the ways in which memories are formed, transformed, and endured.
Yacout Hamdouch first exhibited at October Gallery in a striking duo show, Poetic Threads, in 2026, alongside Zimbabwean ceramicist Xanthe Somers. Hamdouch presented works from two series, Poetic Landscapes and Fertile Rainbows. Poetic Landscapes reflect memory’s ability to capture moments suspended in time, which, even if rare and fleeting, can be both powerful and profound. In these works, Hamdouch traces the process by which she calls ‘mirages’; wherememory sculpts the mirage, which transforms into a landscape that becomes a window allowing us to frame in review those precious, transient moments. In Fertile Rainbows, the artist invites us to consider the complexity of human emotions that bind us all together, by uniting line, layer, form and colour. These subtly graded works evoke something indefinable, ambiguous and even elusive that offer us the outlines of a map upon which we might locate ourselves.
Across both series, Hamdouch deploys her exquisite layering technique, using gradually shifting colours and tones as a reflection of the gradations present in human experience. Her palette is informed by a contemporary interpretation of colours associated with the African continent. Repeated organic forms appear throughout her work, revealing refined abstractions of the female body. Loosely inspired by the thigh - an area of the body rarely discussed yet deeply connected to femininity, sensuality, and strength - these forms echo aspects of both body and landscape, recording traces of memory and presence. In Hamdouch’s paintings, the past is never fixed; it is a live, shifting and deeply personal presence. This subtle yet profoundly introspective approach draws viewers inwards, encouraging questions of one’s own relationship to time, memory and experience as potentiated by these shared moments of recognition.
Hamdouch’s first solo exhibition took place at La Galerie 38, Casablanca, in September 2022, followed by her second solo exhibition at La Galerie 38, Marrakech in 2024. Her works can be found in the collections of MACAAL, Marrakech; Maroc Musée Mohammed VI, Rabat and Maroc Fondation Alliances, Casablanca, Morocco.
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View below for career highlights and works for sale by the artist.
