The body is often used as a site of queer resistance and transgression. Karim Boumjimar's solo exhibition in Alice Folker Gallery presents a series of drawings that celebrate the body in all its diversity and challenge the norms of beauty and representation. With the title Fluid Forms, Boumjimar alludes to the fluidity of identity, the transformative power of art, the fluidity of the body, and the fluidity of the world around us.
Human bodies are represented as intertwined fragments that are part of a dense and diverse natural world. The works are set in an underwater environment, connecting the natural world and the fluidity of gender. With vivid colours and abstract forms, different species - both animal and human - play, entangle, and contaminate each other while living in a state of inexpressible joy. Boumjimar's work attempts to create a sense of Chaos and Confusion that can be interpreted as a metaphor for society contaminated by oppressive heteronormative structures, a restrictive ecosystem that oppresses (queer) people.
Through explicit bodily compositions, Boumjimar's drawings explore the relationship between the human body and the ecosystem. They depict bodies that are intertwined and contaminated, alluding to the fluidity of gender, species, and ecologies, especially in relation to the queer community. Hereby, Boumjimar's work invites the viewer to reflect on different ways in which heteronormative society oppresses queer people, compelling us to consider how nature can be a space of freedom and acceptance.
Karim Boumjimar (b. 1998, Spain) is a student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen with a BFA from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London. Boumjimar works with performance, painting, sculpture, installation, and drawing. His works often depict queer people and communities and explore ways in which queerness can be both beautiful and challenging by diving into the complexities of identity, intimacy, and social dynamics.
Boumjimar has recently exhibited with solo shows at Creator Projects, Copenhagen (2023); NSFW/SVILOVA, Gothenburg (2023); Springbrættet 6a, Copenhagen (2023); Galleri 1,4 m3, Copenhagen (2022) and Art Hub, Copenhagen (2021). Latest group exhibitions and performances include shows at Centro de Arte la Panera, Barcelona (2023); Dag H 42, Copenhagen (2023); Overgaden Institute for Contemporary Arts, Copenhagen (2021); Blake & Vargas, Berlin (2021); Kunstverein, Hamburg (2021); Cucina x Copenhill, Copenhagen (2021); Schauspielhaus, Zurich (2021) and Alexander Sauna, Athens (2018).
Parallel to other exhibits and practices, Boumjimar has performed with Young Boy Dancing Group since 2016 at various venues in Copenhagen, Berlin, Munich, Helsinki, Vilnius, Milan, Madrid and London.
