We all have five senses, one of them is always more developed. For Akim Zerouali, it is touch, especially the raw material that seems to be at the origin of his art, sculpture. Wood reigns supreme there, proud and alive material, at the same time, malleable and robust whose qualities and resistance guide its hand as much as its thought or its creative will.

Attempts and trials, desires and renouncements have followed one another over the years until the circumstances of life put him up against the wall or rather face his desire to sculpt and give him the means. A studio in New York, isolated from his apartment, the freedom not to work for a living. Many fear the blank page! For Akim Zerouali, on the contrary, it was the occasion of a revelation and an important production. For the most part totems, in any case upright vertical pieces, and in a few years, a colorful original work that pushes the viewer towards interior abysses, often unsuspected.

The repetitiveness of the pieces pushes us towards the mother forest of each of the works, towards distant cultures! Their multitude reminds us that we belong to a world where originality is the result of research, not loneliness.

It is only recently that Akim made the link with the tribe from which he descended, "the Peuls" who since time immemorial sculpted totems. Text by C. Sportis