From Artistic Direction to the Creation of Unique Pieces,
Who is Samir Mazer?

For around twenty years, Samir Mazer has been working with traditional zellige, treating it as a material rather than just a pattern. As the artistic director of Ateliers Zelij in Toulouse, he offers custom surface collections, with a variety of motifs and colors that can be assembled. Today, as an artist, he thrives in creating unique pieces, which are increasingly in demand. With just an idea of the project or destination, prestigious brands and private clients alike seek his creative vision, anticipating the surprise of the patterns, shapes, and colors. They come for the artist’s statement, for a singular aesthetic that invites the unpredictable into a poetic dialogue with the material.

How Does Samir Mazer Approach Zellige?

A New Perspective on an Ancient Art for a New Aesthetic Language

Samir Mazer reimagines the zellige of his childhood in Tetouan, exploring the geometric possibilities of this unique terracotta tile. He seeks to create a new aesthetic language, one that is detached from tradition yet rooted in its spiritual strength and cultural essence. In his workshop in Toulouse, he transforms the square tile into a field of experimentation. A new geometric poetry emerges, blending origami, minimalism, and infinite forms. Each tile, cut into geometric patterns, can be rearranged like a tangram or repeated like a colorful musical sequence with unexpected notes. These surfaces, soothing in their repetition and surprising in their color distribution from the traditional palette, weave sensitive stories. For Samir, they represent a perception of light beyond the material. Each zellige fragment is unique, reflecting light according to its irregularities, glazes, shades, textures, and cut, and of course, depending on the light it captures before sending it back to us.

Origins and Specificities of Zellige

Zellige is a Moroccan craftsmanship, originating from clay quarries and an ancestral technique that has remained unchanged for centuries. Traditionally, this terracotta tile, intended to embody a sacred art, is stripped of its materiality to exist solely through the pattern it forms. These glazed clay fragments, assembled in determined, precise, and codified sequences, create a divine vocabulary and language. Fès, the capital of zellige in Morocco, is home to the most skilled artisans and colorists who produce these 10×10 cm clay tiles, fired in wood ovens and then hand-cut. Only a few ancient tools, including the dry and powerful marteline, allow artisans to sculpt these delicate fragments like an alphabet of clay. In Samir Mazer’s hands, zellige, where the function of the pattern surpasses the material’s possibilities, finds new potential. For the artist, preservation alone is not enough to keep a culture alive; it must also be reinvented.

Innovation with Respect for Traditional Craftsmanship, Knowledge, and Culture

Samir Mazer and Ateliers Zelij work closely with master zelligeurs from Fès within their partner workshop. Samir’s innovative approach, while breaking from tradition, respects it, resonating with a new generation of Moroccan artisans eager to evolve zellige beyond its borders. The development of a resin to preassemble the tesserae has also rethought the logistics of installation. Ateliers Zelij and the artisans are also committed to preserving this art and technique. The zellige crafted by Samir is certified as “Zellige de Fès” and “Moroccan Hand-Made” by the Moroccan Ministry of Craftsmanship. The workshop uses repurposed waste from the agro-food sector to fuel its kilns, engaging in a responsible approach to material and environmental preservation.

An Example of Realization with L’Envol at the Royal Mansour Casablanca

A design, a model, or a work of art can be inspired by an initial creative concept, such as a color assembly, a geometric combination, or a texture. Samir begins by drafting his artistic intention, which leads to a collaborative exchange of ideas and inspirations with the client, ultimately revealing a new narrative beyond the initial concept. The next phase involves an immersive process in the project, carried out with confidentiality. The materials, spaces, and destinations are all considered to ensure the final work of art harmonizes with these elements. L’Envol, a fresco installed in January 2024 in the panoramic restaurant of the Royal Mansour Casablanca, draws inspiration from Wave, a piece created by Samir in 2020 and selected by Atelier 27 for this project. A site visit allowed Samir to immerse himself in the environment and rethink his original work to ensure this new piece resonated with the location. The creation of L’Envol required 200 hours of work, from color selection to ground assembly checks. The tesserae were then individually flipped for preassembly, allowing for the entire piece to be installed on-site within two days. For this project, the installation was managed by the partner workshop of Ateliers Zelij, under Samir’s supervision.

As the initiator of a new language and dialogue between ancient art, contemporary design, and craftsmanship, Samir Mazer invites us to rethink our relationship with art and material. His work transforms materials through the artist’s vision and the artisan’s touch, infusing interiors with poetry.

You can explore an interview with Samir Mazer in the Portraits section.

Photos – ©Alexis Frespuech, ©Omar Tajmouati, ©SamirMazer, @shirleydoukhan,
©Philippe Garcia BD, ©Jeremy Logeay, ©Victor Fleury Ponsin