Who am I?
I am Sana El Khamlichi, a French self-taught painter.
I started painting almost three years ago, in December 2022.
Painting entered my life as if it were a given, almost without warning. I can't say where it came from: one day, I simply felt like painting. So I bought a few tubes of paint, some brushes, a few canvases, and I got started.
Before that, I had never drawn, painted, or practiced any form of art. I started because I needed to, without even knowing it.
Perhaps my sensitivity was already there, dormant, particularly in my choice to turn to philosophy studies, and that it was looking for a place to express itself. Painting has become precisely this free, silent space, where I can deposit what I am not always able to say otherwise.
For me, it is more than a means of expression, but another form of language that allows me to explore my emotions, to give them form and life. In a sense, to express the inexpressible.
My life revolves around two essential axes: writing and painting.
Two forms of expression that intertwine, respond to each other, and help me to understand myself better, to better face my emotions, by welcoming them, by letting them live gently, without seeking to contain or repress them.
For me, the purpose of a work of art is first and foremost to respond to an inner need: the need to express something intimate, yet universal. Through painting, I seek to live and to bring to life. I do not seek to faithfully reproduce the visible, but to bring into existence what lives within me, which is sometimes ignored, set aside, or which escapes ordinary gaze.
What I love most about painting is playing with color. Why? Because with color, you can give shape to anything. It allows you to reveal the inexpressible, to express raw emotions, to weave inner landscapes that resemble nothing known. This play of color is for me a journey, a sensory and emotional exploration, where the concrete fades to give way to the invisible.
What I'm looking for, what inspires me.
I'm not looking for precision or realism. I'm not aiming for technical mastery or excellence. Rather, I try, through painting, to travel elsewhere and, in turn, to make others travel. I build bridges to other worlds, spaces where my moods, sometimes dark, sometimes bright, can transform into an explosion of color.
Among my inspirations, there is first of all Hirohiko Araki, mangaka of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure , who holds a special place in my heart. I was deeply influenced by his use of colors and the expressiveness of his lines, at a key period of my life.
I can of course also cite expressive and raw painting like Fauvism, with Henri Matisse, or Expressionism. There is also a touch of Impressionism and especially Post-Impressionism in my paintings, one can think of Van Gogh, Gauguin or Paul Signac.
I have a particular admiration for Art Nouveau, especially the works of Gustav Klimt, whose legacy shines through in my use of gold in my own paintings.
My work.
It is from this weaving, my sensitivity, philosophy, my readings, my encounters, my joys and my disappointments, that the person I am today and the works I create were born.
These influences intertwine to compose my artistic universe. A world under construction, always in motion, where painting and writing converse to explore the complexity of the human heart.