Youssef Douieb
Youssef Douieb (b.1965, Casablanca, Morocco) is a self-taught Moroccan artist whose practice is rooted in geometric abstraction and shaped by a strong affinity with the visual language of the Casablanca School.
From an early age, architecture and geometry became central to Douieb’s visual imagination. As a child, the sliding doors of his bedroom cupboards inspired drawings resembling the silhouettes of New York skyscrapers; years later, the elongated architecture of Casablanca’s Barceló Hotel became the starting point for a series of works conceived for the building itself.
Douieb’s paintings are characterised by a distinctly sculptural quality, combining pure, sharply defined forms with vivid fields of acrylic colour. His approach is intuitive and spontaneous: rather than seeking complete control over the composition, he allows gesture and instinct to guide the work and embraces the unexpected as part of the creative process. This freedom is balanced by a rigorous attention to colour, form and spatial relationships.
His artistic vocabulary reflects his longstanding engagement with the legacy of Moroccan modernism and, in particular, figures associated with the Casablanca School such as Mohamed Melehi, Mohamed Chebâa and Mohamed Hamidi. While acknowledging this lineage, Douieb has developed a personal language in which geometry, architecture and colour come together to create compositions that are both structured and instinctive.
Douieb has presented five solo exhibitions in Morocco, including at La Galerie 38, Galerie Nadar, Galerie ALIF BA and Carrefour des Arts in Casablanca, and his work has been permanently exhibited at Thema Art Gallery in Casablanca since 2006. His work has also featured in group exhibitions in Morocco and internationally, with presentations in London, Geneva, Huelva and Frankfurt, as well as at the Villa des Arts in Casablanca.
For Douieb, painting remains an intuitive and deeply necessary act — a space of freedom in which form and colour are used above all to provoke an emotional response in the viewer.
Youssef Douieb lives and works in Morocco.
Youssef Douieb (b.1965, Casablanca, Morocco) is a self-taught Moroccan artist whose practice is rooted in geometric abstraction and shaped by a strong affinity with the visual language of the Casablanca School.
From an early age, architecture and geometry became central to Douieb’s visual imagination. As a child, the sliding doors of his bedroom cupboards inspired drawings resembling the silhouettes of New York skyscrapers; years later, the elongated architecture of Casablanca’s Barceló Hotel became the starting point for a series of works conceived for the building itself.
Douieb’s paintings are characterised by a distinctly sculptural quality, combining pure, sharply defined forms with vivid fields of acrylic colour. His approach is intuitive and spontaneous: rather than seeking complete control over the composition, he allows gesture and instinct to guide the work and embraces the unexpected as part of the creative process. This freedom is balanced by a rigorous attention to colour, form and spatial relationships.
His artistic vocabulary reflects his longstanding engagement with the legacy of Moroccan modernism and, in particular, figures associated with the Casablanca School such as Mohamed Melehi, Mohamed Chebâa and Mohamed Hamidi. While acknowledging this lineage, Douieb has developed a personal language in which geometry, architecture and colour come together to create compositions that are both structured and instinctive.
Douieb has presented five solo exhibitions in Morocco, including at La Galerie 38, Galerie Nadar, Galerie ALIF BA and Carrefour des Arts in Casablanca, and his work has been permanently exhibited at Thema Art Gallery in Casablanca since 2006. His work has also featured in group exhibitions in Morocco and internationally, with presentations in London, Geneva, Huelva and Frankfurt, as well as at the Villa des Arts in Casablanca.
For Douieb, painting remains an intuitive and deeply necessary act — a space of freedom in which form and colour are used above all to provoke an emotional response in the viewer.
Youssef Douieb lives and works in Morocco.
