Revealing The Intangible: Rahma Lhoussig’s Art As A Gateway To The Unseen

Hi Rahma Lhoussig, it is a pleasure being able to speak with you today and we appreciate you taking the time to speak with us. Your art explores the allegorization of the unconscious. What inspired you to explore this subject matter in your work?

During the beginning of my art practice, I was always looking for inspiration around me but I wanted to find something more interesting and different, I know inspiration can be found everywhere on the outside, but what about the inside, I had a dream journal where I was writing my dreams and I have always been interested in the unconscious part of the memory, that’s when I decided that I want to explore that mysterious universe and I started to create compositions that are inspired by those dreams, so now most of my inspirations come from the world of dreams, memory, also the theme of childhood and the intimate space are a very important topics in my work, how the meaning of a place depends on a memory and how the definition of things around us is developed through the body’s sensorial experiences, the unconscious mind plays a significant role in shaping our behavior, thoughts, and emotions, and my work looks at the unconscious like an allegory.

Questioning our behaviors, fears, and emotions, I’m fascinated by the relationship between the conscious/unconscious, and visible/ invisible, although for me what’s hidden is more important than what’s visible, and that’s why I see my work as a translation of those internal conversations that we have. I want to plunge the viewer into these intimate questions and this eternal confusion that unites us all, how our habits and attitudes are all influenced by our emotions, and the ways we attribute meaning to our surroundings through our senses. This dialogue helps me to uncover more of the cryptic inner nature of us as humans.

Your art features a diversity of mediums, including acrylic, oil, pastels, and colored pencils. How do you decide which medium to use for each piece?

I always use these mediums intuitively, I love working on details but at the same time I like playing with colors and lines without thinking too much to create a different artistic language and also to give a chance to the inner child to play a little bit on the canvas, it’s like a mixture of different feelings because each medium gives me something different and allows me to create something different, oil paints provides the flexibility I desire when working on the details, the pastels give me bright and vibrant colors, I also use colored pencils to draw on top of the painting spontaneously and I mix the mediums to enjoy the advantages of each one of them and to also break free from the traditional artistic methods of working on a painting.

A reassuring feature seems to incorporate intentionally unfinished iconography. Can you discuss the significance of this stylistic choice and how it relates to your overall artistic vision?

My art practice often involves how memories are perceived in fragments, remembering and forgetting, how we can only recall some fragments from our past experiences and that our memories may not be complete and there is always something that we don’t know about ourselves, and that’s why while working on something I stop at a certain level and leave the piece or the object incomplete, I also use only some fragments of the space, the emptiness symbolizes lost memories, memories we can’t fully remember or memories that we can recall just a glimpse of, what interests me is the psychological place and not the physical, I want to translate the emotions we could have in a certain place, in our intimate place, in places that appeal to our emotions, because for me a physical space without an emotional presence cannot be more than a structure,

Animals play a prominent role in your artwork, and you describe them as a symbolic reading of the psyche. How do you use animals to convey meaning in your art?

I try to build in my work an imaginary scenario or an open story where different representations intertwine, and I symbolically use animals, I use the crow a lot as a symbol of mystery, and fidelity to origins, the stork is a symbol of rebirth and protection because they always defend their nest/home, the ostrich as a symbol of fear and playfulness, I use these representational elements to provoke contemplation and spark multiple interpretations to the viewer.

Blurring the border between interior and exterior, conscious and subconscious, and real and unreal. How do you capture this duality in your work?

Being inspired by dreams and memories helped me to capture these opposing feelings, I see the subconscious mind as a house that’s full of possibilities, and I try to translate that through the poses of the body, the characters live inside a world that’s different to the one around them, the neutral facial expressions, you don’t know which feeling the character is experiencing, also the vibrant colors give a vibe that’s different than the story of the painting, and I do that to highlight the complexity of an experience.

Childhood memories are a point of reference in your artwork. Can you discuss how your childhood influences your artistic vision?

My childhood was fun, I liked spending my time at home drawing, reading, and playing with toys, I have many memories in the house where I spent my childhood, we no longer live there and when we moved out in 2015, I had dreams about it every night, I wasn’t aware of how I was attached to that place, but those dreams made me realize that places live inside of us just as we lived inside of them, that’s why most of my childhood memories, toys, and old objects are used in my compositions.

Your art explores the private realm of the intimate, making visible what is ordinarily invisible. What message do you hope to convey to viewers through this exploration?

I want to dislodge the viewer’s gaze from the ordinary meaning of things around us, I want the viewers to ask questions about themselves too, to be open about the idea of exploring our inner complexity, to navigate and integrate the different aspects of their psyche.

Can you walk us through your creative process, from conception to completion of an artwork?

Whenever I have an idea that I want to work on, it has to evoke strong emotions within me, that’s when I know I should work on it and bring it to life, I start by sketching the composition then I take many pictures of the model to choose the right movement of the body that will help me translate the right emotion and story, I choose the clothes, the objects I want to include, I use domestic objects that we have in my parents’ house or some from the pictures of the old family photo album that reminds me of the time I have spent at the old house, I tell the model to give me the feeling of fatigue, submission, and once the final composition is ready I start by sketching it on the canvas, work on the first layers, then work on the details, then play with colors and lines. Sometimes I work on more than one piece at a time, and each time I’m working on an idea it suggests possibilities for another

How has your artistic style and approach evolved, and what do you see for the future of your art?

My artistic practice has evolved over the years, it’s still an ongoing process, I did try other mediums such as sculpture, etching, and screen printing, but each time I find myself going back to paints and canvases, I think it’s because I love the process of working on a painting, also courage and lots and lots of hard work made my art grow from the beginning till now, I do spend most of my time in the studio, I work every day except Sundays or when I’m on the road traveling, and even when I’m not in the studio I always have my small sketchbook where I write or draw my ideas, I’m still experimenting and exploring myself and the world around me through my art, and I hope to share my ideas and visions in the future with a wider audience and viewers from different backgrounds.