MEHDI DJELIL

Lives and works in Algiers

Born in 1985

Aphrodite et Diogène, 2025 painting by Mehdi Djelil. A surreal illustration featuring a kneeling classical sculpture of a man against a pastel background with orange and pink brushstrokes representing a naked godess.

Mehdi Djelil is an Algerian painter whose work is characterized by a strong sense of dreamlike imagery and poetic figuration. Previously featured in a solo exhibition at the gallery, his paintings create immersive visual worlds where reality and imagination merge. Mehdi Djelil develops a painterly practice marked by poetic imagery and dreamlike atmospheres. His works inhabit a space between reality and imagination, where figures, landscapes, and symbolic elements converge to create evocative visual narratives. Through a subtle use of color and composition, Djelil explores memory, emotion, and the subjective experience of place. His paintings invite contemplation while opening multiple layers of interpretation...Read more

Mehdi Djelil aka BARDI questions the boundary between myths and realities.

Featured works

Exhibitions

Do you hear the landscape?

1-54 London presents Do you hear the landscape?, an exhibition gathering Algerian artists through painting, photography, and video. It explores landscape as a mirror of the self and a site of collective memory, resistance, and resilience… Read more

1-54 London

Mehdi Djelil painting. A line drawing of two figures with their foreheads touching, one with long hair and the other with a hat or head covering, set against a background with bold orange sections.

Summer Groupshow Level 1

Next Level. The Hamid Khellafi gallery changes its level for a summer. After the opening of its cycle dedicated to Algerian artists in February 2025, and the first solo exhibitions of Chemsedine Herriche, Adlane Samet and Mehdi Djelil, the gallery inaugurates a new stage with Summer Group Show, an evolving group exhibition… Read more.

Galerie Hamid Khellafi

Mehdi Djelil painting. A detailed line drawing of a classical inspired figure with long flowing hair set against a vibrant, abstract background of colorful shapes and swirls.

Le Sommeil des Dieux

Painting survived the flood. As an introduction, Mehdi Djelil, known as Bardi, likes to recall the story that discipline carries with her from the caves and negative hands. He sees even modern art reviving this quest for an innocent gaze, a way of speaking to the intelligence through the eyes, first and foremost through color and line. The artist distrusts the… Read more

Galerie Hamid Khellafi

Artworks