WALID EL MASRI
the seat of perception iii
Walid el masri
Ayyam Gallery Jeddah 4 June - 10 July 2013
The paintings of Lebanese artist Walid El Masri relentlessly examine a single material subject matter – a chair – treating it as a point of departure for greater investigations into the fundamental components of painting and as a vehicle for experiments in palette and composition. Toying with depth and space, El Masri’s work seeks to reconfigure compositional properties in order to explore the myriad variations that result from a repeated action. Born in 1979 in Beirut, Walid El Masri lives and works in Paris. Selected solo exhibitions include Ayyam Gallery DIFC, Dubai (2012); Ayyam Gallery Beirut (2012); Ayyam Gallery Al Quoz, Dubai (2009); Ayyam Gallery Damascus (2008).
Profound Simplicity
Painting is, for Walid El Masri, a meditative exploration in palette, form, traditional Islamic principles of design, and symbology discovered through the assiduous layering of colors onto a blank canvas. Yet this meditative experience is not exclusive to the artist, for El Masri’s canvases arouse the viewer’s contemplation of the fundamental components of painting and perception. Though the compositions revolve around an unwavering examination of a single subject - a simple chair - his varied experiments in palette, depth, and portrayal infuse this inanimate object with a hypnotic power. For the artist, repetition is never the same and each successive painting presents a conscious, cohesive visual stream; every canvas a tessera joining together to form a larger, integrated mosaic. Mosaic is an important word as El Masri’s canvases delve into the principles inherent in Islamic mosaic tradition: logic, order and unity. Employing the Islamic passion for abstraction and unifying the material and spiritual worlds, El Masri’s series opens a direct dialogue of the tension between infinite elements and their immediate surroundings. Approaching each composition with a tangible vigor and intensity, his use of repetition has a harmonizing effect on the series, presenting it as a detailed study into the semiotics of imagery. Although the pictorial image of a chair is seemingly complex, El Masri reveals the intrinsic simplicity of its imagery, stating “any horizontal line on a set of vertical lines can be recognized as a chair”.
While symbols can exhaust verbal explanation, verbal explanation can never exhaust symbols and though chairs are ultimately a utilitarian object, through the meditative contemplation of El Masri’s canvases, its sign becomes pervaded with meaning. A chair is no longer merely a chair; its functional and anthropological associations are woven together in its very image, further reinforcing the profoundness of simplicity. Walid El Masri also incorporates several tenants of Japanese painting into his canvases, notably the simultaneous use of abstraction and naturalism, shifting perspectives, focus on essentials, and limited subjects. Though the perspective, quick hatching and truncation renders them slightly ambiguous, it is difficult to categorize Walid El Masri’s works as purely abstract due to the instantaneous recognition of the form of any chair. In his works, the vanishing point lies just beyond the canvas’s edge at a distance behind the viewer, thereby incorporating the audience into the parameters of the painting. His chairs, pared down to an evocative yet basic configuration of shapes and lines, are depicted from obscure angles, rendered with rough contours and often truncated sharply at the top. This truncation lends a freedom of mobility to the subject, extends the spatial context of the subject outside the perimeter of the canvas, and leads the viewer to question its directionality, whether entering or exiting the canvas. The lower portions of his compositions tend to be void, creating an engulfing space in which one can forget everything. Yet whether the chairs are truncated, floating in space, balanced in a frame or with a horizon line, contained within an oval or horizontally offset by a colored puddle, El Masri achieves a palpable tension between the materiality of the chair and its illusory setting.
Article first published in Time Out Dubai, 16 November 2009
Deep Seated By Chris Lord
Talking to an artist via a translator is always difficult. Trying to wander this way among the furniture of Walid El Masri’s work is like a labyrinth. But when we meet El Masri in his vast basement studio in a leafy suburb of Damascus, something previously enigmatic suddenly makes a lot of sense. El Masri’s works are all around us, each featuring the signature chair and defining abundance of a single colour that have become instantly recognisable aspects of his art. Time Out catches up with the Syrian artist a few weeks after his return from a show in Beijing. ‘I was surprised that people understood the complexities in these works,’ he explains. ‘They felt there was something Chinese about my art.’ He also believes it was something about the layout of the Beijing exhibition that drew passers-by into his work. ‘The other artists were closed off, in small rooms separate from the space. I was given a single wall in the main space. You could pass by it – the viewer wasn’t trapped in a room.’ El Masri left school at 14 to learn the family business of mosaic making. Having watched his father – a silent, peaceful man – at work, El Masri tells us he came into the trade and quickly gained an aptitude for laying vast tiled creations. This fostered in him a certain meticulousness; a propensity for repetition that we see in his continual use of a chair motif. When he eventually returned to art school, he insisted on laying out his work on the walls of the college in neat, tiled rows. This sense of the individual works being part of a greater whole, El Masri explains, is essential to understanding what he’s getting at. ‘In Chinese philosophy there is always duality, empty space and an object, white and black. In my works this exists also. All of my chairs are painted as if there is a bigger whole beyond them – that’s why they always run off the canvas. I want the objects that are within this empty space to give you
the impression that the space surrounds you, not just in the painting.’ We try to prompt an explanation of the ubiquitous chairs in El Masri’s work, but he stops us to explain, sage-like despite the sunglasses balancing on his head. ‘There is no reason that I use a chair – it’s just a very simple object that everyone can understand. It’s there to make you understand the idea of an object, but it’s not about what this object is or represents. The first time you look, you see a chair, but afterwards, hopefully, you don’t.’ There are hints, as El Masri talks, of a Zen-like philosophy underpinning these works. ‘Painting makes me more balanced – I need that,’ he says, explaining his interest in how ideas of the Buddha and the Tao Te Ching may have permeated the Middle East. It seems as though El Masri is seeking some common ground between the philosophies of the Far East and those of the Middle East. Attracted to the simplicity of what he calls the ‘black lines’ of Chinese art, this extends to an ascetic view of life that he suggests both cultures, in their deepest philosophies, aspire to. El Masri himself is of Druze heritage, and tells us that ‘at their very beginning, these works come from the philosophy of the Druze’. The Druze in Syria live predominantly in the mountainous south-west of the country. An offshoot of Islam that emerged in the 11th century, the faith draws on various esoteric and Gnostic philosophies in its interpretation of Islam. As soon as El Masri begins to talk about the ideas of the Druze, the tempo of conversation spirals out of control. But through the mass of ideas, it seems it is the simplicity of living and the contemplative traditions of the Druze that have drawn El Masri to explore his own background through the philosophies of the Far East. After wading through this fog of complicated ideas and even more complicated translation, it’s tough to return to the simplicity of El Masri’s art. But as he leads us past a selection of works, hanging very close together on a plain white wall, it’s hard not to take on some of the silence that these pieces carry. For all of the philosophies buzzing in the artist, it’s also hard
not to think of El Masri’s father – silently, studiously assembling a greater whole. Mosaic is an important word as El Masri’s canvases delve into the principles inherent in Islamic mosaic tradition: logic, order and unity. Employing the Islamic passion for abstraction and unifying the material and spiritual worlds, El Masri’s series opens a direct dialogue of the tension between infinite elements and their immediate surroundings. Approaching each composition with a tangible vigor and intensity, his use of repetition has a harmonizing effect on the series, presenting it as a detailed study into the semiotics of imagery. Although the pictorial image of a chair is seemingly complex, El Masri reveals the intrinsic simplicity of its imagery, stating “any horizontal line on a set of vertical lines can be recognized as a chair”. While symbols can exhaust verbal explanation, verbal explanation can never exhaust symbols and though chairs are ultimately a utilitarian object, through the meditative contemplation of El Masri’s canvases, its sign becomes pervaded with meaning. A chair is no longer merely a chair; its functional and anthropological associations are woven together in its very image.
Chairs 2007 Mixed Media on Canvas 180 x 180 cm
Chairs 2007 Mixed Media on Canvas 150 x 150 cm
Chairs 2008 Mixed Media on Canvas 150 x 150 cm
Chairs 2008 Mixed Media on Canvas 180 x 180 cm
Chairs 2009 Mixed Media on Canvas 120 x 120 cm
Chairs 2009 Mixed Media on Canvas 120 x 120 cm
Chairs 2009 Mixed Media on Canvas 150 x 150 cm
Chairs 2009 Mixed Media on Canvas 235 x 145 cm
Chairs 2009 Mixed Media on Canvas 200 x 180 cm
Chairs 2009 Mixed Media on Canvas 235 x 145 cm
Chairs 2009 Mixed Media on Canvas 120 x 120 cm
Chairs 2009 Mixed Media on Canvas 200 x 180 cm
Chairs 2009 Mixed Media on Canvas 120 x 120 cm
Chairs 2009 Mixed Media on Canvas 150 x 150 cm
Ayyam Gallery
Founded by collectors and cousins Khaled and Hisham Samawi in Damascus in 2006, Ayyam Gallery sought to nurture Syria’s burgeoning and dynamic contemporary art scene through landmark non-profit initiatives such as the Shabab Ayyam Project, an incubator for emerging artists. Expansion into Beirut and Dubai enabled Ayyam Gallery to broaden its scope from the promotion of work by Syrian artists to those from the wider Middle East region. In doing so, Ayyam Gallery has established itself as one of the foremost exponents of Middle Eastern contemporary art to the international community. Today, Ayyam Gallery is recognized as a leading cultural voice in the region, representing a roster of Arab and Iranian artists with an international profile and museum presence. A number of non-commercial exhibitions, as well as the launch of Ayyam Publishing, Ayyam Editions, and The Young Collectors Auction, have further succeeded in showcasing the work of Middle Eastern artists with the aim of educating a wider audience about the art of this significant region. Ayyam Gallery Damascus currently functions as a studio and creative haven for artists who remain in the wartorn city. In early 2013, Ayyam Gallery launched new spaces in London and Jeddah.
Ayyam Gallery, Jeddah Bougainvillea Center Jeddah, Third Floor, King's Road, Al-Shat'ta District Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, T: +966 26134111 jeddah@ayyamgallery.com www.ayyamgallery.com