By Ica Wahbeh
AMMAN – Mohammad Jaloos’ squares look like the multiplying cells of a zygote that later become life, or like myriad windows, onto the outside world or into the soul. He has been painting them for a while now because they give him “inside peace and balance or form, lines and colour”.
They are not plain, bi-dimensional squares devoid of life, but, like some ancient tablets inscribed with a secret writing, they are charged, breathe life and invite deciphering. Like composite images, these agglomerates of orderly squares are contained in yet other squares – the wooden frames. They are sensible and obedient, watching through the invisible eyes of the countless faces they contain.
Hundreds of portraits can be discerned, sketched, stylised, barely hinted at, faces that “become abstract figures inside the square”.
Trapped, caged, resigned to their fate or, occasionally, hopeful that freedom is at hand, the faces are symbols of humanity “living in squares, contained between walls”.
It is, Jaloos says, the tragedy of human beings – because “we all have some tragedy in our lives, especially those living under occupation” – his “way of presenting this tragedy thought squares and the faces imprisoned in them”.
The paintings are the fruit of the last three years of work. The exhibition, at CAB Art Gallery, celebrates this artist’s 30 years of artistic activity. It is the crowning of many decades of dedication to art, but in no way the end of it, for, as Jaloos says, “after all these years, I feel like I’ve just started a new thing”.
Having worked on technique, colour and form, the artist determined that the new thing is the square, this perfect confinement space that can be a box, a room, a cell, borders, real or virtual limitations, perfect shapes that, juxtaposed, can easily make a bigger whole whose meaning is unchanged.
Modeling some medium, besides acrylic, the artist creates depth, a sculptural look that is as tactile as it is inviting.
The colours, in tone with the theme, are subdued, mostly earthen: beige, ochre, brown, maroon, grey, black, but occasionally, a burst of orange, purple, green, anil blue and red – the colour of blood from a wounded being – both jolts the senses and enlivens the paintings, making them exuberant like life itself.
The play of line and colour is masterful. A few strokes make a face with such seeming ease that one can almost forget the painstaking belabouring that went into the creation of such image.
At times, the indescribable portraits look like clay masks, the faces under waiting for the mould to break and for them to break free.
The paintings might look like some ancient findings, but their subjects are present-day human beings entrapped in enclosures, deprived of freedom and yearning for it. It is, indeed, Jaloos’ way of expressing the “tragedy” of a people under occupation or of mankind confined in self- or society-imposed limitations.
Having passed through different phases, the artist will clearly not stop here. To mark 30 years of artistic experience, a book of his works was also issued and signed at the opening of the exhibition. Such art books are rare, if at all present, in book shops around. They could enrich our universe, make the world a more beautiful place to live in.
Jaloos’ works are on display until October 20.