Born in France to Algerian parents, Maya-Inès Touam’s work sits between two shores of the Mediterranean, exploring an oriental aesthetic, not from a neo-orientalist point of view, but from her own point of view as the granddaughter of emigrants – how to account for an identity that is both intimate and foreign to her?

Resorting to a multitude of media – photography, drawing, and sculpture – and with symbolic or personal objects as her starting point, the artist has been constructing a body of work that is both anthropological and oneiric. She immerses herself in the roots of her origins, which she questions and investigates in order to draw images (often still lifes) from these fragments of history. Her research also extends to the diasporas of the African continent in France, adding a postcolonial perspective on immigration to her work.

In “Replica”, the series presented at the art fair, Touam explores the notion of a creolization of culture, revealing a plural and hybrid art through a radically colourful atmosphere. The series also signals a departure from the formerly recurring Dutch painting style, in favour of modern painting, and even though it maintains a dialogue with Western art, it is more focused on shapes and colour palettes.