Youssef Boukhatem

Youssef Boukhatem (born in El Jadida on 8 September 1957) is a contemporary Moroccan artist with a long-standing practice in Tangier.

His visual language is rooted in expressive line, vivid colour and a raw, intuitive approach to portraiture. Working on an eclectic range of unconventional surfaces and materials, Boukhatem creates enigmatic figures that move between abstraction, symbolism and a deeply personal form of expression. Bold contours, striking eyes and a spontaneous energy define his work, reflecting the freedom and immediacy of his artistic approach.

At times, Boukhatem allows chance to determine the beginning of a work. He may deliberately spill coffee onto a sheet of paper or cardboard, observing the shape and movement of the stain as it spreads. Rather than treating it as a flaw, he takes the resulting mark as a starting point, developing an image or form in response to the coffee stain itself. In this way, an accidental trace becomes the foundation for a new work, with the final composition emerging through a dialogue between chance and artistic intervention.

Boukhatem remains a distinctive voice within Tangier’s diverse and evolving art scene.