Zakaria Ramhani was born in Tangiers, Morocco in 1983. He currently lives and works in Montreal, Canada. Ramhani was raised in a Muslim community and in a creative home; his father was a landscape painter who shied away from portraying the human figure for religious concerns. Whenever he was commissioned for a portrait he explained to his son that he would seek God’s forgiveness. Just like his father before him, the paradox at the core of Ramhani’s work is the tradition of aniconism in Islam which conflicts with his love of portraiture.
Ramhani is known for his large-scale paintings that use Arabic calligraphy. The writing in his work initially looks as though it has been laid over the images. This language is not comprehensible and does not attempt to provide any meaning. The message of the work is in the presence of the words and not the meaning of the words. In essence, calligraphy is the medium the actual brush stroke through which Ramhani creates and simultaneously blurs his images, relying on the winding curves of calligraphic letters to form the shapes he wants.
He has caused controversy with the political nature of his art. His work has dealt with issues such as the Arab Spring which was a series of protests and uprisings against the governance of Arab African countries such as Tunisia and Egypt among others in the early 2010s. During an exhibition at Art Dubai, authorities censored Ramhani’s You Were My Only Love for its depiction of the police brutality which had taken place at a political demonstration at Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt. The image became a symbol of Egyptian protest against extreme military power. He is also responsible for altering the famous image of the blue bra woman which shows a woman struggling against gorillas as Vincent van Gogh looks on disapprovingly.
In 2006, Ramhani became the youngest Moroccan citizen to be awarded a residency from the French government at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris. Since then, he has exhibited at the Barbican Centre in London, England; Centre d’Exposition Val-d’Or in Quebec, Canada; and the Dakar Biennale in Senegal. He had one of the top ten highest auction results for artists under 30 in 2010. His work is in the collections of the Barjeel Foundation, the Alain-Dominique Perrin Collection, and the Royal family of Morocco. He has also exhibited his show titled May Allah Forgive Me, Vol. 1 and 2 in the United States in 2013 under the guidance of Julie Meneret Contemporary Art.
