Mustapha Azeroual: Observation and Experimentation

And at the start of it all, there was light, there was colour, there was form

With text by Emma Warburton, arts writer and curator.

Much of Mustapha Azeroual's work rests in the poetic space between opposites. Indeed, Azeroual works in a way that is at once representational and abstract, technical and organic, deliberate and accidental, and referential and forward thinking. Simultaneously activating dichotomies in both method and concept, Azeroual has succeeded in developing a photographic practice that is deeply satisfying aesthetically and technically. Azeroual trained as a scientist, and therefore brings an approach to image making into his art practice that is substantially based on observation and experimentation. Much of his work gives the impression of being born out of scientific method: one that involves careful measures, planning, testing, and the formulation of theories and hypotheses that will likely inform a next approach.

Azeroual’s interest in hour images are created and interpreted has also inspired a number of works where the artist relinquishes control in the photographic process, rather than the very deliberate interception with images we see in other projects. The Radiance series, 2016, for instance, is based on a process for recording colours. The project is inspired by the idea that an artist has limited control over the colours that are recorded and restored while producing photographic positives. To create the Radiance series, Azeroual uses a camera to capture colour variations during sunrise and sunset, printing these colour patterns according to the proportions of a landscape where the general idea of a horizon line - a suggested delineation between the heavens and the earth - is found in the gradations of hues.

Mustapha Azeroual, Radiance series (2016). Image courtesy of the artist.