Nabil El Makhloufi was born in 1973 in Fez, Morocco.
A graduate of the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, a German city renowned for its famous school of figurative painting, the Neue Leipziger Schule, he has developed a unique artistic approach in which figuration remains predominant. This figurative style gives his paintings a very distinctive atmosphere, where realism subtly merges with symbolism.
In his paintings, time and space are fragmented, imposing a moment of suspension on the viewer. His figures, often breaking away from the group to stand alone, reveal themselves through striking expressiveness, drawing the viewer into their inner world, their doubts, and their sense of strangeness.
Through these characters, Nabil El Makhloufi questions notions of belonging, collective identities, and the space left for individual singularity within the group. His work explores the complex relationship between the individual and the collective, while also offering a reflection on the situation in the Arab world.
His personal experience of living abroad also plays a central role in his work. The theme of migration, which he has deeply explored, goes beyond the recent and widely publicized challenges faced by refugees and extends to older dynamics spanning several generations.
Nabil El Makhloufi’s works have entered major public and private collections, including the Sharjah Art Foundation(United Arab Emirates), the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (Morocco), the Norval Foundation(South Africa), Société Générale (France), Saham Bank (Morocco), and the B.A.T CampusGalerie Collection(Germany).
Nabil El Makhloufi lives and works in Leipzig, Germany.