Translation of an exhibition text published by Jérôle Poggi (Paris), January-February 2023
Even though their composition is very rigorous, Djamel Tatah’s new paintings transpire a rather vulnerable and precarious world. They are mute. Stupor and silence reign in them. A quiet transformation stands at the core of his work, which can evoke the memento mori. All his compositions give a glimpse of the nothingness against which he struggles. Threatened by oblivion and erasure, his figures appear either to emerge from an invisible realm or to plunge into the beyond. Like spectres, they wander in a deserted world, an absolute whiteness that underlines what memory paradoxically owes to loss.
Mouna Mekouar, 2023, excerpt.