Interview by Jimon

1. Where do you reside and work currently? I’m based in Berlin Germany. However I also have a studio in Paris.

2. What made you decide to paint? It comes naturally to me as a need to express and share my feelings.

3. Did you study art or is it inherent? I didn’t study art. I study engineering and acting.

4. How would you describe Taher Jaoui?  As a human being trying to live in balance between thoughts and feelings and working on communicating this balance through my paintings

5. Are you trying to send a message through your art or is it purely for inspiration? Actually it is purely for inspiration. I invite the viewer to immerse in my composition with his own feelings and explanations.

6. What kind of art hangs on the walls of your home? There are no art hanging at my home. May be I should hang some. I feel like once home I need to empty my mind from a day in the studio.

7. What influences you as an artist? Music of any kind but mostly rock, rap and classic. Movies as well. African primitive art, masks, sculptures. Also old fashion American and French cartoons. Berlin and it’s street graffiti.

8. Do you remember the first piece of art that captured your imagination? Yes the skull, mostly blue, by Basquiat.

9. Is there any reality behind your paintings or are they purely fantasy? Lets say it is like it looks a mix of both. Abstraction and representation

10. How do you define success? Success for me is the happiness and joy on the face of a kid looking at any of my paintings.

11. How would you like to be seen as an artist years from now? I don’t know.

12. If you could have dinner with 3 artists living/dead who would be at your table? Van Gogh and Gauguin to get the exact details about Van Gogh cutting his ear. I will choose Bruce Lee to keep them from fighting again.

13. Name three things you can’t live without in your studio? Music, some old movies on my computer, coffee.

14. How would someone find you on the internet/social media?  You can find me on Instagram  @taherjaoui