Heavily inspired by Roland Barthes, Derrida, Picasso, and David Lynch, Thameur Mejri’s apophatic canvases are deconstruction in the flesh, expressing what he calls a “secular exorcism.” This active deconstruction is done to showcase the violent hierarchy of the signified over signifier, to make some sense of how we as humans are conditioned by dogma, circumstance, and the power elite.
To achieve any understanding of our conditioning, Mejri feels we must deconstruct our landscape, our surroundings, and ourselves to free ourselves from the external – to shed light on the difference, as Derrida mentions, to regain control of ourselves and to see objects and our environment for what it does to us, how it shapes us, and how it threatens our existence while at the same time shaping it. His canvases are an exercise in cathartic release, to look inwards and outwards at the same time, so to free ourselves from the shackles of our dogmatic existence.
He has exhibited widely, including the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, London (2020), the 13th Cairo Biennial, Cairo, Egypt (2019) Dakar Biennale of Contemporary African Art, Dakar, Senegal (2018), N' Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, Detroit, USA (2018), and upcoming solo exhibitions at Le macLYON, Lyon, France (Feb 2021) and Montague Contemporary, New York, USA (March 2021).
Mejri’s work forms part of many prestigious collections of art, including Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE / The Sindika Dokolo Foundation, Luanda, Angola / Dalloul Art Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon. The Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL), Marrakech. Morocco.