My art has enjoyed an interesting evolution over the years, guided by my absolute faith in abstraction. To me, abstraction is returning to Nature as a reference, and it is a joy that I practice in everything I do. The various subtle elements of this abstraction has had a clear presence in my art since the 80s, manifesting itself as human faces in the beginning and gradually evolving to random colorful lines in my most recent works. These faces and lines relate to characters that are forever embedded in my memory and refuse to depart. – characters which compel me to depict them in their natural, unaltered state.
These timeless depictions reflect my inability to purge my memory of all that makes it. These faces, at times coarse in their complexion and rough and in their texture, communicate a hidden meaning without permission or conscience. They often forsake their individual characteristics in favor of a more visual, undefined façade – shaped by the blows of the knife against the paste.
In my last exhibition, I experimented with substituting the visual for the expressionistic and with making Mother Nature the ultimate reference for the visual. Nature here is the hope and the house of all secrets – secrets which I have nurtured for more than two decades. The painting remains a friend with whom I constantly reunite; I surrender myself to it, willingly surrendering to the sinuous motion of the brush and the unceasing flow of emotion.
In the early stages of my artistic journey, I was overwhelmed by the Iraqi school of painting. I was captivated by the works of Dia Azrawi to the extent of direct imitation – some that confused him greatly when he visited my house in the early 80s. This drove me to rethink what I paint and to seek my own artistic voice. I must inevitably refer to my early years as a writer, which was also in the early 80s. I had just published my first collection of stories, titled Memoirs of a Sidewalk, and I was tremendously influenced by the linearity of narratives, which eventually carried over into my paintings. I began experimenting with the power of the intellect, juxtaposing blacks and whites, and completing hundreds of paintings in that same style. These works were even used by a few of the writers from my circle of friends as illustrations for their various works of poetry and fiction. This style, however, has long since become inferior to me, and it was a short while later that I became enthralled in the beauty of Nature and the natural elements. It was an essential return to the origin – the return from after a feeble attempt in the chaotic quest for identity.
Plastic art as a form of expression is a wide-ranging human experience that resulted from the European search for identity. Similarly, this experimentation in painting is but a manifestation of the collective Arab search for an independent Arab art. Perhaps, in their fascination with painting, the Arabs have revisited their linguistic and calligraphic heritage. Yet the visual elements of the experimentation are essentially individual and ungoverned by nation or creed. It is in the in the relativity of perception that the artist finds their I-hood.
Prior to taking flight in the world of abstraction in the early 90s, I had been touched by the Bedouin scene and the movement of people amidst the silent desert. I did not linger long at this stage despite the staggering support and communal sentiments of Arab audiences everywhere. Such sentiments can drive an artist to remain attached to a given style, which might deter their evolution and prevent them from revolting against their own trend.
As a child, I would scribble on walls using mere leftovers for tools – a near-empty henna bottle or coals from the camp’s winter fires. Of course, the winters were hard and cruel; bringing heavy rain that would often drown the road to our school. We would often stand in long lines waiting for a warm meal supplemented with milk or a pill. Back then, we drew pictures of airplanes and love birds, and we boldly wrote names of girls without permission, placing them in the first hearts and arrows we ever drew. There was always a concept that was left undrawn, and it is that painting that returns to me frequently – not in the recesses of my imagination but in my memories of the neighborhood in which I grew up.
I have spent years searching amongst the lines and colors, taken over by my stubborn need to experiment and create. I have found my voice in the total liberty of the brush. Style is merely a lie through which an artist conceals that which they do not wish to reveal, in their endless fear of searching or experimentation. The essence of an artist lies in their totality; their perception, their joys, sorrows and the unchanging movement of their fingers. I have never shied away from experimentation, even though I believe that modern art has left little room for the artist to innovate. There is nothing new before the modern artist save his own spirit and visual heritage.
The search, however, is a joyous and eventful journey – one that has been the root of both my joys and my sorrows. I have gone through different stages, which were always colored with my yearning to relive my childhood memories, not to mention the endless support I received from my illiterate mother who fostered my talents from when I scribbled my first lines.
It is only in total freedom that I find my art taking form. I have fallen in love with the wide brush, which gives me the liberty to eliminate details and embrace my innate recklessness as an artist. This recklessness stems from my childhood, which I find myself clinging to despite the unceasing efforts of time to dissolve it.
As for Sufism, the concept, to me, reflects that sublimation in color that has dyed the hearts of all those who have shunned the world in favor of the Spirit. It is the intricate shadings of color, it’s very soul, the various shades of mud, the desert landscape – even the glow of the sun. It is the definitive abstraction of the return to the Self, the silent dialogue.
Of course, when it comes to the feminine, the first impression would be that this particular element is absent from my work. And would it not? After all, the world had chosen to depict her as she is; with her hair, eyes and body. To me, she remains present even in the forms of mud, for the faces I paint are genderless and featureless, in which male and female intertwine in a manner that is almost inhuman in its humanity. It is this woman who is imbued in all my art; the little girl I played with as a child, and the mother who would wave to me from behind the windows of my house as I return home from school. She is the tender and coarse in my texture; light and fire.
As for my friend Amina, the guardian of my art, she is the one to whom I turn when I need a critical eye. I would call upon her every time I was at a loss about color or line and she would always cheerfully declare her approval or silently relay her displeasure. Yaman and Furat, my children, are drawn by the natural painting. Yaman himself was a painter as a child but was taken hostage by the world of architecture when he entered the university. Furat, of them all, is the most insane on paper. He leans toward abstraction, for he is greatly influenced by my work and often outmatches me in escaping the restraints of intellect.
In closing, there is but one thing left to say: the joy of the artist during the process of creation is many times found in the viewer. In the hands of the artist, the colors come and go before their eyes. It is a time of utter thoughtlessness when the whims of intellect give way to the spontaneous movement of the hand and the untamed flow of emotion. I attest that I have enjoyed my journey as an artist. I have experienced first-hand the rare transformation a work of art undergoes; from being a mere concept in the artist’s mind to becoming a timeless visual consciousness that fills the surface of a painting with the anthem of color and the dance of lines. I wish to live yet another lifetime so that I may travel the artist’s journey yet again.