Sahbi CHTIOUI (Tunis, 1953).

Early on at school, Chtioui surprised others with his skill in drawing and modelling. At a very young age he practised music, owned a violin that would disappear, a fact that would turn his life upside down. At the age of nineteen, he became interested in performing in a circus which took him around the Mediterranean: Greece, Spain, Egypt, Yugoslavia, France, Syria, Italy...With a certification in metalwork, he also spent a short time at the Beaux-Arts in Tunis and at the Montparnasse studio in Paris where he received training. After all these explorations, at the age of twenty-seven (1980), he returned to Tunis and took a pause. Following the death of his parents, he decided to leave Tunisia and took the first flight out of Tunis airport without thinking about the destination. Sahbi landed in Casablanca. There, he started with odd jobs and finally settled down with a certain ease. But this new life is far from his passion: his strong infatuation for the art of drawing, painting and sculpture that he knows so well. He suddenly decided to leave this quiet life and opted definitively for a life as an artist, and above all, as a sculptor. Selling a batch of painted paintings to a gallery in Casablanca, he bought his first sacks of clay and got down to work. Since then, he has enjoyed a real recognition and support from society at large for his art.