Goodrich Home - What's Happening - Atelier - Voices Underground - Open Curtain - Voices & Visions
Site Specific/Installations - Steel - Stone - Salt - Wood - Mixed Media - Two Dimensional - Exhibitions - Resume

Noufissa Benjelloun – Morocco

Writer, Painter, Psychiatrist

I am Noufissa Benjelloun. I am a medical doctor, a child and adult psychiatrist, with background in psychology. I never thought I would be a painter.

I was doing training in psychiatry in Luzerne, Switzerland and University Mohamed 5, Rabat. I would see paintings on the walls done by patients. One day I bought all the materials—watercolors and gouache—and began to paint flowers. I looked at the paintings and drawings of Van Gogh at Arles, Picasso, Gauguin. When I was in Switzerland, there was a Director, Spanish and very well educated, and he told me I had a lot of talent. When I came back to Morocco, I went on painting and I have exhibited in many countries and all of the cities of Morocco. This was about my painting. At a certain time it was a kind of lyrical abstraction.

Now I write poems of Sufi. My writing, the writing of my father, also Sufi writing. I admire the writing of great Sufi poets. I also was writing what happened to me, my impressions about everything. These years I have written three books: Ma Me’re, Mon e’nfant: re’cit, which is nonfiction; a book of short stories, which are surreal; and the last book, very special to me, Lueurs intimes, has much sobriety.

My life is painting, studying, and writing.