Amina Saoudi Aït Khay once signed up for a silk-painting course hosted at a ladies club. She quit after the instructor disparaged her resistance to following instructions. The French serti technique starts with transferring a drawing from paper onto silk, then retracing the drawn outlines with a resist to define areas where the paint or dye will be prevented from running and where it will be allowed to soak into the fabric. Saudi Aït Khay was beguiled by the expressive potential of the medium but wanted to find a more improvisatory method. She was not interested in “representing a flower’s bloom, but rather the meaning of the blossoming”, she said.
In addition to making silk paintings, Saoudi Aït Khay began to weave with wool, dyeing her yarn with natural pigments sourced from the land around her house. Here, too, her technique favours improvisation. Saoudi Aït Khay’s tapestries refer to her memory of Moroccan and Tunisian landscapes and to Amazigh heritage, in which carpet-weaving plays an important role, as well as to her mother, who was a carpet weaver and political activist. Her practice is also resonant with modern and contemporary Moroccan art for its use of traditional forms and natural materials – knowledges rooted in centuries-old traditions transmitted across generations.
—Rasha Salti
