In Foix, sculptor Abdelmalik Boufarit divides his life between his job at the Chiva intercommunal hospital center of the Ariege valleys and his sculpture studio. He has worked with talc, a soft stone, for more than 30 years.
His all-white studio holds about 40 sculptures, ranging from pieces small enough to fit in one hand to works weighing more than 10 kilograms. All are carved from talc, a material he fell in love with more than three decades ago and has never left.
Boufarit said that when he works he can stay for hours. He said his wife sometimes calls him to eat and he tells her he is coming, but that ten or fifteen minutes still pass before he leaves the sculpture.
A chance encounter
Boufarit's path began in 1991, when he arrived in Ariege and was hired at the Luzenac talc factory. At the time he drew and painted in his free time, until he saw seasonal workers turning pieces of stone into doves, small vases and decorative plates using just a knife during breaks. He said he asked himself why he should not try turning what he did in drawing into sculpture. He said the early days were not easy, since he first had to learn the material and manage to complete a sculpture without breaking it.
Self-taught, he relied on books instead of classes and learned through trial and error, at a time when the internet barely existed. He said he had to search for information everywhere, that he had always been curious, and that when he wanted to understand something he had to see it through to the end.
He spent several years refining his technique before feeling truly comfortable with it by the mid-1990s. He said that what mattered more than the work itself was passion, that he was so drawn to talc, and that it is a soft material that lets him create almost any shape he imagines.
That pull never left him. He said he tried limestone once, just to see, but quickly returned to talc, because its softness is not the same. He said he chose to stay faithful to talc, that it is part of Ariege, and that he is too.
Giving meaning to stone
Every sculpture now starts the same way, with a raw block placed in front of him. He said he looks at the stone and already imagines the shape inside it, that he sometimes makes a drawing but often goes straight to the block, and that he tries to see the sculpture before it exists.
His work has moved away from faithful reproductions over time. He said animals let him learn the basics but they no longer fed his imagination, that reproducing was a stage, and that what interests him now is creating something that did not exist before.
He said every sculpture must tell a story, that it is not only about making something beautiful, and that there has to be a message. His creations often deal with humanity, peoples and life journeys, themes that echo his own background: he was born in Belgium to Moroccan parents before moving to France.
He considers a work never truly finished. Some pieces return to the workbench several times. He said he would think a piece was done, then an idea would come back to him, so he would add an element or change a shape. He said he refuses to give up that standard, that one should never be fully satisfied, that thinking you have arrived means you stop progressing, and that he still considers himself a student.
A passion after work
Time has become scarcer since he began working at Chiva. His sculpting hours are now concentrated on evenings, weekends and holidays, and he makes fewer decorative objects in series than before, preferring to spend his limited time on more personal creations.
His exhibitions have also become less frequent, down to three or four a year. He said what matters to him is not making himself known but making his work known, showing what can be done with talc and helping people discover the material.
In his exhibition room, he quietly watches visitors move from one sculpture to another. He said their reactions interest him almost as much as his own works, that the public sees things that creators no longer see, and that it is the public that allows artists to keep progressing.
