Driss Ouadahi (Algerian, b. 1959)

Through his elaborate paintings, Ouadahi depicts high-rise buildings, inspired by the vast public housing developments in Algiers, which have in turn been modeled on France's habitation à loyer modéré (housing at moderated rents). These buildings are most often inhabited from displaced rural populations in Algiers, whilst in France they house immigrants from former colonies. Ouadahi therefore uses these monolithic buildings to denounce the failure of Modern Architecture to help the human condition. Through his complex renderings of steel, glass and concrete, the painter makes the buildings impenetrable and isolated, recalling how these constructions are also symbols of political, religious and ethnical discrimination, and yet simultaneously evoking a paradoxical beauty. Ouadahi's paintings have been exhibited worldwide in both group and solo shows in Algeria, Morocco, France, Germany, San Francisco and New York.