Colour me disillusioned: Algerian artist paints his generation

The way young Algerian artist Aghiles Issiakhem sees it, the future for many of his 20-something generation is as bleak as his charcoal portraits of them.
"For a young person here, there's nothing -- you can escape abroad or flee into drugs and alcohol," says the 22-year-old.
Anger and disillusionment are rife among Algeria's young. Those aged under 35 now make up two thirds of the unemployed among the 36-million people of the oil-rich but impoverished North African country.
The self-taught artist shows off a series of his portraits of friends, members of a disaffected generation who walk the streets of Algiers without training, degrees, jobs or much hope for the future.
"I put myself in the place of these young people because I feel concerned," says Issiakhem, pointing at a huge charcoal portrait of a hittiste -- Algerian street slang for a jobless young man who bides his time leaning against a wall.
"I feel their emotion," said the artist, who roams the streets for inspiration and spends long nights listening to his friends, about how they can't find work and can't study, about their lack of money and a place to live.