Factory of Hope

Factory of Hope is a solo exhibition of new paintings and drawings by Meriam Benkirane at La Galerie 38 in Marrakech, from 23 October to 28 November 2026. Born in Casablanca in 1984, she shows eleven oils on canvas and five mixed media works on paper, all dated 2026. The canvases run from 80 by 70 cm to Les temps au-delà du temps, which is 250 cm wide. In that painting, pale tubes, slotted bars and hooks lock together over a crimson panel, floating against a grey ground.

For many years Benkirane planned her compositions on a computer, at times modelling them in three dimensions. In the catalogue essay, Amine Boushaba writes that this show marks a step away from the screen. Drawings now pass more directly onto the canvas, and oil paint slows the work down. She builds each surface in successive layers and stops before the brush marks are smoothed away. The palette is narrower than in earlier series, and each picture holds fewer elements.

Boushaba reads her geometry as a kind of figuration. Shapes stand in for people, objects, buildings and machines, and each one props up, slots into or blocks another. Benkirane names Fernand Léger as a close reference and describes what she paints as a "mental space". The title answers a period of crises, information overload and faster exchange. Several titles name balance or hope, from Jeux d'équilibres and Anatomy of Balance to Imaginarium of Hope.

The works on paper come from a more private practice of watercolour, Japanese gouache, pastel, pencil and ink. Some drawings wait a long time before they become paintings. Benkirane trained as an interior architect. Her earlier solo shows at La Galerie 38 in Casablanca were Reflect in 2022 and Interlude in 2024, when she moved from acrylic to oil. She painted a 13 by 11 metre mural for the Jidar festival in Rabat in 2023. Her work is held by the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat and by MACAAL in Marrakech.