Fouad Bellamine has established himself with major works that constitute an intimate interweaving of aesthetics and memory and assert a sovereign autonomy of painting in the Arab world, where literature has traditionally predominated over the visual culture. He chose to combine the act with thought in the early years of his career in an effort to bring painting to a high level of expressivity. His work has since revealed great pictorial mastery while conveying the deep emotion of the painter’s memories. There are recurrent references in his painting to the architectural elements of Fez his birthplace, such as domes, vaults, arches and niches. Like the madeleine of Proust, one of his favourite authors, they encapsulate “the huge edifice of memory”.