Alongside the large canvases that made his reputation, Abdelkébir Rabi’ accumulates sheets of paper, notebooks, and fragments in his studio. These modest formats reveal an inner territory essential to his work. The small format emerges as a first breath. Drawing becomes a spiritual exercise: not a preparatory activity, but a practice valuable in itself. The artist lays down flashes of intuition, signs that surface even before thought can formulate them. The line, made with a brush attached to a handle, echoes the calligraphic writing he practiced as a child in the Quranic school. This gesture aligns with a meditative approach to art, where each drawing becomes an act of faith.

The charcoals of Boulemane capture the memory of a child who grew up there, between sky and stone. Rabi’s work bears witness to a subtle balance between spiritual heritage and artistic exploration. In this bareness—this “spiritual poverty” (faqr), considered by the Sufis as the primary condition for any mystical realization—lies his strength: the ability to contain, in a few centimeters, a fragment of infinity.

Born in 1944 in Boulemane, Abdelkébir Rabi' has been developing a major body of work on the Moroccan scene for over sixty years. He has presented numerous solo exhibitions and participated in major events in Morocco and internationally, in galleries such as Le Savouroux, L’Atelier, Nadar, Venise Cadre, Atelier 21, the Espace d’art de la Fondation Société Générale, SoArt Gallery, Artorium and Khalid Fine Arts Gallery, which represents him today. His work has also been shown at fairs, biennials, institutes, foundations and museums in Grenoble, Paris, Brussels, São Paulo, Tunis, Barcelona and Rotterdam.