A many-pointed star, a typical motif in Moroccan ornaments, is the point of departure for the ‘Dérives’ series of paintings. Echakhch starts with the simple geometrical form, enlarges it and imposes other forms on it until the canvas is covered with a dense tangle of black lines. No painting resembles any other und the original ornamental pattern is always difficult to pick out. In terms of art history, the key role of geometrical patterns in Islamic art has become more important because of the ban on figurative portrayal. Symmetry plays an all pervasive role as it is taken to be indicative of absolute, infinite divinity. Echakhch plays with the geometrical formal language of the Arabic culture that is attributed to her in the same playful attitude towards her identity, which also defies an unambiguous definition. As has already been mentioned, she lives in Switzerland as a Frenchwoman with Moroccan roots. The variations realized by the different paintings stand for the different ways character formation may take place in one and the same person. They symbolize the tangled paths that each life follows, leading perhaps to an (unknown) destination at some point in the future. By shattering the “sacred” symmetry and interfering with the perfection of the pattern, Echakhch creates pictures that have novelty on their side, even if they may appear chaotic.
The paintings series have been made with black India ink and sepia ink, both commonly used for ink drawing which Latifa Echakhch has used a number of times in her work (‘Tambour’, ‘Fantôme’, ‘Untitled (sepia)’). Applied to very damp canvases, the ink spreads as it is absorbed. Its extremely unpredictable contours seem to escape any attempt of control. The invading shapes evoke both microscopic growths and strange, uncanny rhizomes, which like poetic creepers draw us down into melancholy.