Yassine Balbzioui

Yassine Balbzioui (b. 1972, Marrakech, Morocco) is a Moroccan artist based in Marrakech who works in painting, drawing, performance and installation. His work explores identity and transformation, and questions social norms and our relation to nature. It sits at the border between reality and fiction. The mask is his recurring motif, carried by masked and hybrid figures. He defines himself above all as a painter, working in a neo expressionist style. His materials include oil on canvas, acrylic on paper and mural painting.

He studied at the School of Fine Arts of Casablanca (1996), then took the DNAP and DNSEP in Bordeaux. From 2001 he also studied at the University of California, Berkeley. MACAAL links his visual language to this varied training. In 2011 he showed The Fish inside me at the Château de la Louvière, Montluçon. He published Identity to Rent in 2023. Sans titre (2023), an acrylic on paper of 21 by 14.8 cm, is in the Centre Pompidou. Crazy Lines (2026) is an in situ installation in the staircase of MACAAL, Marrakech, made during a residency there. It joins a mural, oil paintings on canvas and sculptural framing, and opened on 8 February 2026.

His solo exhibitions include Mad at Iwalewahaus, Bayreuth (2019), and Funny Games at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Berlin (2021). In 2024 he showed Carousel at Galerie Shart, Casablanca. Simon Njami selected him for Dak'Art, the Biennial of Contemporary African Art, Dakar (2016 and 2018). Group shows include the 5th Marrakech Biennale (2014), Manifesta 13, Marseille (2020), and the Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid (2021). He held residencies at the Cité internationale des arts, Paris (2016 to 2017), and Villa Swagatam, Lucknow (2023 to 2024). His work is in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, MACAAL and the Museum of Bank Al-Maghrib, Rabat.