Biographie
Born in El Hanchane, Morocco, in 1959.
A leading figure in the culture of Gnaoua culture – named after a musical style and members of of mystical Muslim brotherhoods mystical Muslim brotherhoods –
Mohamed Tabal was one of the first artists to have pictorially pictorially invested the mystical universe mystical universe of this brotherhood.
Son of a travelling musician from Berber Ganga (term designating the sons of the sun and of the seasons), he was initiated from his youth into the cult of the Gnaoua. Tabal” means “drum”. means “drum”, an instrument he learned to play. Embracing the profession of his father in Casablanca and the surrounding area, he painted as a self-taught childhood. Thereafter, following the encouragement of Frederic Damgaard, a
gallery owner of Danish origin settled in Essaouira, he abandons music to devote himself entirely to to devote himself entirely to painting.
Tabal is a painter of memory: his own, that of his wanderings and that of of the African diaspora. His paintings are inhabited by the possessing spirits, those of his ancestors of his ancestors and those of slavery. The ritual dances of the ancient Africans animate them. With Ali Maimoune, also present in the Cérès Franco, Mohamed Tabal belongs to the group of singular artists of Essaouira.
He was awarded the Golden Cup, the European prize at the XXIIIrd international competition of modern primitive modern primitive painting, in Switzerland, in 1994 and the first prize of the Festival Gnaoua Festival of Essaouira in 2012.
He has exhibited several times since 1989 in France, Belgium (Musée Royal Museum of Fine Arts, in 1997), in Germany, in Portugal (Pavilion of Morocco, World Fair in Lisbon, 1998), Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Denmark Spain, Switzerland, Denmark and Morocco (Frederic Damgaard Gallery in Essaouira Essaouira: 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1997; Loft Gallery in Casablanca, in 2014 ; B&S Gallery in Casablanca, in 2018).
