Four Seasons Resort Marrakech Presents a New Art Exhibition by the Artist Mederic Turay

Mederic Turay is the archetype of the Afro-politan and the bon vivant whose constant wanderings always bring something new to his work. His expressionist and abstract works reflect his travels between Morocco, the Ivory Coast and the United States. The artist transcends notions of geography, ethnicity and socio-politics, while remaining rooted in his identity and heritage as a nomadic artist through the use of cultural motifs and ancestral and spiritual symbols. Established in Morocco for several years, the affinities and interactions with his adopted land constitute one of the pillars of his inspiration. From October 22, 2022 to February 28, 2023, he will be presenting a two-part exhibition at Four Seasons Resort Marrakech and in the Oukaïmeden region of the High Atlas.

The Enclosures, memory of a natural and cultural heritage

It was in Marrakech that the art of large urban gardens was born in the 11th century, a new style, with immense orchards and large basins; deeply Moroccan gardens where the vegetal prevails over the mineral. In this case, the architecture is content to delegate to the garden an art work that recalls it. Coming from the High Atlas, the founders of the city wanted to reproduce through these gardens in the traditional concept of the enclosures of their mountains: the Agdal, a spatial concept and a place of tribal transhumance where natural resources are protected and defended; a relic of the past that today finds a new resonance with projects of sustainable development and management of collective resources; a meaningful concept for Mederic Turay, a transhumant artist, who emphasizes the importance of the heritage dimension of these spaces. With the sequence Eclosion Mémorielle, Mederic Turay transports us to a completely different symbolic universe.

Eclosion Mémorielle, an original exhibition

Eclosion mémorielle is an original exhibition in which Mederic Turay explores his favorite theme "resist to exist," a central leitmotiv of his research, which he integrates into his creation and declines under several forms in order to dig and increase its validity, its legitimacy and its evidence. The aesthetic experience at the sight of this work, reveals to us what we do not see. The exhibition therefore condenses the imagination of the viewer, who in turn appropriates the work and internalizes the concept. There is no question here of centred geography, the artist claims a universe governed by vital forces that ooze human, in its confrontations, its multiple struggles, to exist. This exhibition is a narrative in two parts, which is held on two different sites.

First Hatching: The Oasis Gardens of Four Seasons Resort Marrakech

Framed by the panorama of the snow-capped Atlas Mountains and surrounded by millenium old gardens, the iconic Four Seasons Resort Marrakech is an oasis of well-being in the heart of Marrakech. In the shade of its hundred-year-old palm and olive trees, Mederic Turay presents a selection of paintings and sculptures, shown for the first time in this project. Drawings on paper as well as preparatory sketches reveal the graphic approach of the artist in an intimate projection of his work.

Second hatching: The gardens of the High Atlas

It is in Oukaïmeden, at 3000 metres (9,800 feet) of altitude and in the heart of the High Atlas that Médéric Turay, appropriates the parameters of land art, and develops an open-air course accessible to all.

It is a prehistoric site known worldwide for its rock engravings, showing mostly animal themes where the place of the human is reduced, immersed in nature and confused with the underground world of genies. Emanating from the transhumant societies of the Moroccan Atlas, these engravings attribute a human interiority to all living beings, ignoring the border between nature and culture; a site that constitutes a strong source of inspiration for Mederic Turay. Attracted by human faces, the artist tries to capture through his works the particularities that make a faceless person anonymous; a style of execution both very abstract and figurative.

This exhibition is supported by the Region of Marrakech-Safi and the province of El Haouz is on the one hand a response to the interest of the artist and his interactions to this territory.  On the other hand, aware of the importance of art in the life of the populations, its capacity to create link and sharing, the authorities gracefully placed at the disposal of Médéric Turay the grounds necessary to the realization of its project whose range is humanistic.

Éclosion Mémorielle, includes a pole with a charitable vocation. An auction will be held in mid-February 2023, the proceeds of which will be donated to local associations that help the poorest.

Four Seasons Resort Marrakech invites its local and international art-loving guests to come and discover an unusual interpretation of the representation of human life, giving everyone the opportunity to let their imagination run wild in front of the complexity of these works of art. Curator : Hafida Jemni Di Folco