The title page of Jean Genet’s book L’ennemi déclaré bears visible traces of graphite. This was the surface on which Dove Allouche pointed the tip of his brush while working on the drawings on exhibit at De Kabinetten van De Vleeshal this summer.

L’ennemi déclaré is Genets account of the massacres at the Palestinian refugee camps Sabra and Shatila, in Beirut. Just as Genet’s work was written to keep the memory of the carnage in Beirut alive, Dove Allouche’s drawings reconstruct the harsh image of a burned forest.

Titled Mélanophila_II, Allouche’s memorial consists of 140 graphite drawings (10 × 15 cm), based on 140 photographs he took of a burned forest in Portugal in 2003. The series’ title refers both to the Melanophila beetle that seeks out forest fires and reproduces itself on charred wood and to the power of transcendence. 140 portraits of the same incinerated forest, but each and every time drawn from a slightly altered perspective, and at a different time of day. Allouche completed Mélanophila_II in 2008.

Dove Allouche (1972) trained at the Ecole Nationale d’art at Cergy and the Drac ile-de-France. He has previously exhibited in Paris, at the Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry – Le Crédac, and has worked in Norway and Venezuela. He lives and works in Paris.