Year 1993
Oil on board
100 x 81 cm

A woman with her right arm extended upwards, she holds between her fingers a wide white cloth about to fall and reveal to us the secret femininity of her naked body.

This apparently profane work contains a deeper and more spiritual symbolism, the key to which can be found in the stage the figure occupies and in the severe expression on her face as she gazes down at the ground, at the ground that enslaves her spirit.

It is the preparation for the nakedness of the whole soul, for the sincere and transcendental dialogue between the human and the divine, intangible, and liturgical ritual carried out through religious prayer.

In the background is the Prayer Room of the Ben Youssef Madrasa in Marrakech, a school of higher theological studies founded in the 14th century and extended by the Saami, which was completed by Sultan Sharif Ghalib al Saadi in 1565. The architecture is a masterpiece of Arab-Andalusian style, formed by Muslim families displaced from Al-Andalus by the Christian armies of the Iberian Peninsula, who chose Morocco to rebuild their lives at a critical time.

Devoid of its religious and educational role, it closed its doors in 1960, until it reopened in 1982 and became one of the most visited tourist areas in the country.

©María José Aguilar