Words: Sheyda Aisha Khaymaz
Published: August 2025
In Nanterre, France, where a young Maghribian, Nahel Merzouk, was killed by police in 2023, Choukri Mesli once lived in exile after fleeing Algeria’s civil war in 1994—yet another chapter in his life riddled with displacement. The Algerian painter’s sensuous female figures, rooted in ancient Saharan rock art, emerge as love letters to a homeland ravaged by centuries of violence, from colonial conquest to authoritarian rule. The article seeks to answer: What does it mean to love a place that has expelled you, and how does an artist respond to unrelenting brutality with beauty?
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