A Moroccan recreates famous paintings at home during coronavirus lockdown

Zineb Bouchra, an 18-year-old Moroccan Instagrammer, took advantage of the lockdown to unleash her inner creative self. On her Instagram account, she recreated the world’s most famous classical paintings, with a Moroccan twist.

The idea came to the Agadir-native, who currently lives in Tetouan where she attends the Institute of Fine Arts, when she heard of an international challenge. While forced to stay home because of the pandemic, Zineb decided to try her luck with the Getty Museum Challenge, which consists of recreating artworks, using only items found at home.

Her project was first encouraged and welcomed by her family, and after posting her first creation on Instagram, it received a lot of praise from her followers, who welcomed the idea.

She later posted other re-creations, which went viral on social media. Through this challenge, Zineb realized that she could «introduce the Amazigh culture in an artistic and creative way», she told Yabiladi.

Recreating famous paintings

Zineb explained how she recreated the classical paintings. She told Yabiladi that she paid close attention to the details. «After that, I look for the right dress to fit the painting or a similar one and then try to memorize the posture in the painting», she explained.

«After several attempts, I get the final result, which is posted on my Instagram, with a caption about the original painting», she added.

In some of her pictures, which emulate well-known international paintings, Zineb shows clothes and symbols that characterize Morocco, such as Amazigh tattoos, caftans, and tagines.

Zainab accompanies these pictures with comments in English, and said that the reason for this is that «the challenge launched by the American Museum is in English», and also because she wants to target a large group people on social media.

This young Moroccan artist aspires to develop her idea in the future by taking it out of social media and to the offline world.