Tribute to my Grand-mother, the root of my art

My art was born from an invisible,  living inheritance.

It began the day I truly saw my grandmother’s paintings. I knew she painted, I remembered it vaguely.

But I had never really looked at what she created… until the day my mother showed me the works she had carefully preserved after her passing.

That day, something opened inside me, when I understood her story, I was deeply moved, and with my husband’s support I tried painting myself.

The very first day I touched a paintbrush, I never put it down.

My grandmother was a Moroccan woman, a mother of eight children. She never went to school.

And yet… she carried a fire inside her.

The only time she had for herself was when all her children were at school. That was when she painted. To clear her mind, to release her emotions.. to breathe.

She had never been to a museum, she knew nothing about art movements.

She didn’t even know that art could be “learned.”, but nothing stopped her.

No one ever showed her what to buy, how to start, or even what was possible. So she invented her own tools.

She pulled cotton and wool from pillows and wrapped it around a pencil , that was her brush. She painted on anything she could find: milk cartons, scraps of paper, any surface at all.

She took colours from her children’s school bags : crayons, pencils, felt tips, whatever she could gather to create. 

Today, my art is a tribute to that woman.

To the mother.

To the fighter.

To the silent artist.

A woman who dedicated her whole life for her family , for her 8 children. and who, despite everything, never abandoned her art.

To paint, for me, is to continue her voice, to extend her gesture, to let live what she was never allowed to show the world.

I paint for her.

And through me, she still paints.