Born in 1973 in Meknes, Morocco, Ghizlane Sahli lives and works in Marrakech. Sahli tells of an interior and organic journey, where she embroiders, sculpts and draws. With the help of ancestral techniques and the know-how of the women artisans who surround her, she develops her contemporary ideas.
Through her acts of recycling, re-energising and re-use, Sahli draws attention to critical environmental issues while also evoking beauty that potentially lies underneath. Carried by a universal dimension, Sahli’s artwork is immersed with the theme of nature, which is embedded seemingly every day. These pieces represent the need for durable progressions in development and the planet's future.
Sahli is an explorer of materials - transforming, exulting and giving meaning to them. She creates three-dimensional embroidery sculptures and installations made from bottle caps covered with silk thread, a technique she refers to as "the Alveoles." Her works are influenced by her understanding of space and architectural design as well as her concerns for environmental sustainability. The Alveolus is the elementary particle of her work, and is the atom that constitutes substance. It is the cell whose accumulation and proliferation create the work, thus bringing her perspective by playing with materials, scales, and volumes.
Sahli's work is part of the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London, the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL), and The Galila’s POC Museum in Bruxelles.