Younes
Khourassani

Biography

Younes Khourassani, born in 1976 in Casablanca, is a Moroccan visual artist trained at the École des Beaux-Arts of Casablanca, following an initial academic path at Lycée Jabir Ibnou Hayane, where he notably studied under Mohamed Hamidi. His trajectory can be understood as an extension of the dynamic shaped by the Casablanca Art School, embodied by artists such as Mohamed Melehi, Farid Belkahia and Mohamed Hamidi, while developing a contemporary approach that is distinctly his own. After his studies, he engaged in a practice centered on matter, before undergoing a decisive shift toward a research in which matter becomes a space of passage, opening his work to an exploration of light as a structuring force. His work, presented in several international contexts (Paris, London, Abu Dhabi, Marrakech, Amsterdam), is rooted in a reflection on transformation, perception, and the viewer's experience. He has also realized several projects within the framework of institutional commissions related to fundamental resources such as water, earth, and food security. He is currently developing new bodies of work, including wall-based works in clay and large-scale sculptures, extending his research on matter, light, and the notion of passage.

Younes Khourassani grew up in the heart of the old medina of Casablanca, in a space marked by a collective memory imbued with a spirit of resistance, where matter intersects with history, forming a sensitive background to his early relationship with mass and space.

This training is rooted in a specific historical and artistic context, linked to the dynamic initiated by the École des Beaux-Arts of Casablanca, through a generation of artists who redefined the relationship between art, society, space, and materials — including Mohamed Melehi, Farid Belkahia and Mohamed Hamidi.

After graduating, he began working directly with matter, through assemblages combining metals, musical instruments, and various objects, exploring tensions between form, memory, and the symbolic charge of materials — described by the critic Edmond Amran El Maleh as a "poetics of matter."

His trajectory then underwent a decisive turning point, crystallizing during the period of confinement. In this context, matter ceased to be an end in itself and became a space of passage. His work shifted toward an exploration of light, not as a simple visual effect, but as a structuring force capable of organizing perception and transforming the internal relationships within the work.

His works develop within an unstable space, driven by dynamics of transformation, where form never fully settles, but remains in tension between appearance and disappearance. The work is not presented as a finished image, but as an experience open to the viewer's interpretation.

His works are part of important public and private collections, including the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat, the Bank Al-Maghrib Museum, as well as institutional collections in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

“I do not work with matter. I work with what passes through it.”