The young artist Dhewadi Hadjab (French, born in 1992 in Algeria) owes a lot to Caravaggio and to the Dutch 17th-century old masters, whose respective techniques of chiaroscuro and textural expression were integrated in his own detailed paintings. Light plays a vital role in Hadjab’s practice – so much so that he prefers to paint at night to avoid daylight intervening in his works.

The starting point of Hadjab’s highly realistic paintings is photography. Hadjab would stage theatrical scenes in which the protagonist – a casually dressed person – is placed in an uneasy, tense, and physically challenging position, as if trying to find the balance. His models are dancers who are able to twist and contort their bodies as Hadjab wishes. Once the artist finds the desired tableau, he would photograph it and use it as a base for his painting, which always starts with a gray underpainting, another historical technique Hadjab learned from the Renaissance.

Art was not the obvious choice for Hadjab, who grew up in a rural region of Algeria. Encouraged, though, by his teacher when still in Algeria, Hadjab copied paintings stemming from very different historical movements in order to understand and learn various techniques. Next to Western art history, another indirect source of imagery for the artist has been his mother’s rugs, which she handwove during his childhood applying various patterns and colors that somehow stuck in Hadjab’s memory. Contemporary dance is another source of inspiration, as it helps him understand the movements of the body.

The Diptych (2021) is an excellent example of Hadjab’s brilliant skills and light effects. One part shows the artist’s ‘classical’ curved body in yellow Adidas pants, meticulously rendering the texture of the fabrics and the skin. The other part depicts a similar setting, but with a mannequin that also attempts to find its balance in his uneasy posture. Stressing that the body is presented as an object and does not attempt to be alive, points at Hadjab’s Muslim background, which doesn’t allow the depiction of living beings with a soul, according to the artist.