Saad Nazih

Laureate of the fine art school of Casablanca, Morocco. Saad Nazih is visual artist working on several social aspects. Creating a fantasy world that’s treating sensitive subjects as politics, religion and sexuality.
Saad Nazih painting is a way of inciting people to wonder and ask questions about the preinstored values and ethics in nowadays society, and to sensibilize about the human conditions and especially in his community.

Could you tell us a little more about your background, and how did you begin creating art?

I am a visual artist from Morocco, graduated from the Fine Arts School of Casablanca in 2011, but before that, my art journey started much earlier. I’ve embraced art and creativity since my first steps in life. As a child, I remember that I was always waiting for the weekend to be able to spend hours drawing and painting. I was creating face masks and costumes for my friends in the neighbourhood, and I was drawing a lot of small portraits on papers that I was sticking all around the wall of my room. Growing up in this entourage, my desire and my passion for art drove me straight to the school of fine arts, where I have been studying for four years, and that was my gateway to the professional career.

What does your art aim to say to the viewers? 

 I essentially make paintings that incite the viewers into a dialogue of wonder about the values and ethics that effects the human conditions in my society, by treating sensitive subjects as politics, religion and individual liberties. I presume that my work is an act of rebellion in an environment where there is a lot of taboos. I aim to say that there is no absolute truth, we need to have more freedom, we need to start thinking differently, and we should see the world from different sides.

Can you tell us about the process of creating your work? What is your daily routine when working?

The process of my work is a progression of many steps that grow until getting to the final result. Everything starts with a little idea hovering my head for days until I get completely sure of bring it alive. I begin the practical work by putting the initial sketches on my sketchbook that I keep constantly with me as I always need to write down the ideas before they get lost between hundreds that flows in my head permanently. After getting a satisfying drawing, I move to the documentation phase, which consist on image search, photo shooting and editing the images that will compose the paintings, it’s a preproduction step if we can call it so. And finally when all is done, the show begins on the canvas, where layers and layers of drawing and painting succeed until getting to the final result.

What’s the essential element in your art?

 I think that the originality and the strength of my work is being able to treat in one single work many sensitive subjects without any self-censorship, which is something rare and daring in my environment. It’s all about expressing what I feel and how I see the human’s condition here where I am. The Society and the religions are two common themes of my painting but the representation has nothing to do with vulgarity or contempt, that what makes the public more interested about exploring and understanding the message behind it, especially that the aesthetic side of the work is significantly elaborated. That looks like a dreamy world with surrealistic tendencies and a Sci-fi touch, all made with a realistic rendering.

In your opinion, what role does the artist have in society? 

Personally, I think that the artist has immense roles in the society, I can’t imagine a world without him on board. It’s such a beautiful thing to see that every artist has his own definition of art and has his own way to contribute in the community. Whether he is an artist chasing beauty or a committed artist, both make our world better. However, to be more specific, I guess that the most obvious roles of the artist are to share his emotions in a visual manner, also to reveal and to reminds the people the truth either if it’s hidden or not. And he can be a witness of his time, by producing a kind of record of his surroundings, and last but not least, is to make people see the world differently from different perspectives. All those facts make from the artists a very important element in the evolution of a society.

Website: www.saadnazih.com