Rachid Zniber Creates
Folk Art with PicsArt
The drawings of Rachid Zniber (@rachidzniber-144) seem to defy the logic of what
mobile art should be. The drawing tools and
effects of PicsArt are advanced and capable of
achieving some vivid and highly realistic results,
yet Rachid’s work seems to get its charm from its
crude simplicity, as if they were made by creative
hands laboring from raw and limited materials.
Essentially, Rachid makes folk art with PicsArt,
using some pretty sophisticated methods to
achieve stripped down results. His drawings seem
as though they were done from a paltry amount of
colors painstakingly painted onto surfaces where
even layers of application don’t manage to stick
completely, like wet wood or sheetrock. In fact,
it is all an illusion created by a careful cocktail of
minimalist painting strategies and smart effects
applications, which when combined together
achieve the look and feel of hand crafted folk art.
The added charm comes from the exotic images
which evoke Middle Eastern culture. The images
depict sandstone cities inhabited by people
draped in long robes, amplifying the effect of
seeming like the art of a common people rather
than a specific artist. The images could easily be
the work of farmers’ and merchants’ wives, telling
the stories of rudimentary lives comprised of hard
work and simple pleasures.
It is as though Rachid has reverse engineered
painting. Whatever Rachid’s intentions and
techniques, however, one thing is certain - he has
used PicsArt to create something original, unique,
and beautiful.
57|PicsArt Monthly