Achraf Touloub’s conceptual research has a paradoxical understanding of our use of technology. It is as if – parallel to its unstoppable progression – it also gravitates towards a return to a primitive dimension. His oil paintings on canvas or ‘soft sculptures’, for instance, are like a second skin. Some of them are based on a conceptual and peaceful archaism, which almost returns us to the original state, the human body, the measure of all things. However, the materials used are synthetic, as if these new contemporary traditions can only be generated by non-natural things, like the plastic nature of polyester. We find ourselves at the end of a cycle and although the ensuing chaos looks frightening, it should be seen as the start of a new cycle – the cycle of Return. A return to the invisible dimension we still dare to call Reality. So let us celebrate the inherent precariousness of any attempt at perception, as it is the saving grace of our failed understanding. ​​

Achraf Touloub was born in 1986 in Casablanca, Morocco, he currently lives and works in Paris, France. He graduated at the École de Beaux-Arts in Paris in 2013. His work has been featured in personal exhibitions held at the Villa Medici in Rome (2019), the Plan B gallery in Berlin (2019; 2016), the Albert Baronian gallery in Brussels (2015; 2011) and the Isa gallery in Mumbai (2015). He recently participated in the Baltic Triennial 13 (2018), the 57th Venice Biennale (2017) and the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2016). Touloubhas also participated in group exhibitions held in such venues as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Deutsche Bank Collection in Berlin, the Barjeel Foundation in Sharjah, and the Arab World Institute and Maison Rouge in Paris.