One of post-colonial Morocco’s most distinguished modern artists, Farid Belkahia was a deeply contemplative artist who worked primarily in the mediums of painting, metalwork and leather, which he treated using traditional techniques and natural dyes, such as henna. A student of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Belkahia became the director of Casablanca’s École supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1962. The fact that this was after Morocco’s drive for independence was successful in 1956 is vital. Although he was influenced by the minimalist and modernist aesthetics from the West, he was a key player in incorporating vibrant symbols from Moroccan heritage into his work. In the 1960s, he began working with copper to create bas-reliefs and the symbols in his work were inspired by tattoos and letter shapes from Morocco’s indigenous Amazigh culture and architecture. In Aube (Dawn), semi-abstract, ambiguous forms resembling body parts in organic, earthy tones fill the composition and a prominent, rainbow-coloured circle emerges in the background, resembling the rising sun at dawn. In the mid-1970s, he began to paint with organic pigments on leather using traditional methods and materials, reworked with a contemporary aesthetic. Belkahia exhibited prominently in Morocco, including at the Galerie Bab Rouah and Galerie l’Atelier in Rabat, as well as the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris.