We first encountered the work of German artist Hendrik Beikirch aka ECB last year in Toulouse where he completed a large scale monochrome portrait of a Maroccan woman for Mr Freeze Festival (covered).

                                 

Toulouse (FR) – Mr Freeze 2015

This was part of a series entitled ‘Tracing Morocco’, following  an artistic residency at Jardin Rouge in collaboration with the Montresso Foundation, during which he created 22 portraits, paying tribute to those anonymous Moroccans craftsmen and women he met during his travels, emphasising these fascinating encounters through portraiture.

Many of these portraits were also painted as large scale murals in New York, Roma, Copenhagen, Oslo, Murmansk, Toulouse, Naestved, Paris etc.

Hendrick ECB Beikirch recently returned to Marrakech to reveal the different artworks and completed additional murals.

Jardin Rouge – Marrakech 2016

Unveiled for the Marrakech Biennale, the latest mural  is an hommage to Aziz, a local Marrakchi builder working at Jardin Rouge, who coincidentally worked to repair this exact wall previously. The artwork can be seen across the Marrakech train station.

See some work in progress shots below.

View the full set of pics here

In parallel the Montresso Foundation released a book ‘Tracing Morocco’ illustrating the collection of Beikirch’s portraits of Moroccan men and women he immortalised by telling their story through their faces.  The book is an edition 2 500 copies with 50 deluxe version, signed and numbered by the artist. To preorder a copy of the book, just drop an email to  contact.jardinrouge@gmail.com

Photos credit: Butterfly / Work in progress shots by Paul Etard / Jardin Rouge