Mohamed Lekleti

Mohamed Lekleti is a Moroccan artist, born in 1965 in Taza, Morocco, who lives and works in Montpellier, France. His practice centres on drawing, mostly in black and white. Alongside charcoal, ink, graphite, pastel and acrylic, he uses sewing, textile, photography and digital printing. Beyond the flat surface he makes resin sculptures and brings in objects, including stuffed birds, wigs and prayer rugs.

His subjects include power, human duality, territorial belonging, immigration and exile. His sources range from personal and collective memory and tales like One Thousand and One Nights to Persian miniatures, colonial-era maps and war images. His father, who fought for Moroccan independence, appears in Gravé au burin de l'histoire, 2022, now in the collection of Frac Occitanie Montpellier.

Lekleti studied cinema in Montpellier and visual arts in Aix-en-Provence. He was named laureate of the Chic Dessin drawing salon in Paris in 2011. He held residencies at Fondation Blachère in Apt in 2017 and at the Institut Supérieur des Beaux-Arts de Besançon in 2020. His solo exhibitions include Musée Paul Valéry, Sète, in 2018. Public holdings include the Centre national des arts plastiques, the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon.