I often find myself facing the reproach of artist friends, including close ones, who admire my artistic works. They question my penchant for simultaneously portraying and presenting conflicting artistic directions. My journey embraces both the realm of "Epic expressionism," (of the inhabited and the uncharted) and the daring explorations into abstraction (seamlessly blending the lyrical and the geometric). Nevertheless, my peers are quick to critique the Western models that have influenced me, as well as the Arab counterparts of my approach in this dual activity, as we will explore. They attempt to rationalize this oscillation and creative freedom, which often elicits critical perplexity among traditional critics, for they perceive these directions or currents as conflicting (due to their lack of understanding of the intricate creative process).
This brings to mind the first half of the twentieth century, when the brilliant French-Russian immigrant, Nicolas de Staël, demonstrated the arbitrariness of this division. He skillfully practiced both, reducing the semiotics of scenes captured from moving trains or speeding cars into geometric compositions. In doing so, he leaned closer to expressing the existentialism of Albert Camus to the extent that he met a nearly suicidal fate behind his bottles foreboding death or the car accident predicted by Camus just a month prior to de Staël’s demise. This period witnessed the isolation of lyrical abstraction, notably among the late Impressionists (and Monet in particular). It was a time of detachment from the existential expressive movement, or late conceptualism, and from the geometric abstraction pioneered by artists like Herbin and Delaunay, before it evolved into "post-70s post-modernist minimalism," following its transition from optical illusion (kinetic) in the 1950s.
It is undeniable that post-modern abstraction, within the vision of de Staël, has emerged from its isolation and stood as a counterpart to what is known as abstract expressionism, reminiscent of the works of Willem de Kooning. My artistic philosophy aligns closely with de Kooning's, emphasizing the seamless integration of abstraction and memory expressionism. It is a journey that has seen the gradual dissolution of feminine forms to embrace kinetic abstraction, a trajectory shared by many pioneers whom I have relatively followed. They reach abstraction through a gradual alignment of their anthropological or urban diagnoses. In my case, it was only during the 1980s that I fully embraced abstraction, following the gradual destruction of the iconic structures of the ancient city (Damascus - Sidon - Paris - Cairo... etc.). This is due to the comprehensive geometry of the city and the detachment of its memories from its narratives and myths.
My journey into abstraction has been intrinsically linked to my settling in Paris since 1975. The waning radiance of the virtuous Farabian cityscape and its chromatic harmonies gradually transformed into structural abstract rhythms. This success was first influenced by my professor, Jacques Nalart, at the Beaux-Arts, as well as my membership, facilitated by him, in the Salon des Réalités nouvelles (New Realities), founded since 1945. In this context, abstraction represented the most radically realistic facet of the external Impressionist art scene. My allegiance to this salon spanned over a decade. Its traditions were solidified in me, thanks to the gallery where I exhibited, located in the heart of the Bastille neighborhood (Galerie Jean). Notably, I was selected by a European committee to represent France alongside César, Tinguely, and others from the modernist pioneers, especially Antoni Tapiès. A total of fifty artists whose art bore signatures rendered with colossal prints received significant recognition, starting with some of the leading European printing presses in Barcelona.
Therefore, I became known in Paris as an abstract artist, despite my gradual return to the intimate realm of expressionism submerged in modernism (often referred to as “post-modernism,” following Georges Bataille). The simple reason being that I connected painting to the dream; we do not dream in squares, circles, or triangles, but rather in something related to the city, no matter how infused with the metaphysical it becomes. My abstract achievements once again turned into the enduring pages of the past without erasing from the canvas this organic fusion between abstraction and the melancholic Mediterranean expressionism.
However, this fusion concealed an equal longing for abstraction, and so I organized an exhibition that was the result of two years of practicing abstraction (in 2015 at Ayyam Gallery in Dubai) titled "Gradual Return to Abstraction." The central turning point in my "post-modern" style occurred in less than a year, as I began to simultaneously create expressive and purely abstract works, influenced by Lebanese art, particularly the Druze artist Saliba Douaihy, who excelled in depicting the landscapes of his region, Ehden, Zgharta, and Mount Lebanon. He later transitioned to the Moroccan phase before settling in the United States, where his style evolved into a purely American topographic abstraction. I became acquainted with his art and style during his final years in Paris, along with the influences of Shafik Abboud (who worked alongside my professor Jacques Nalart in managing the Salon of New Realities) and Mohamed Aksouh.
Paul Klee surpasses all of these mentors for a simple reason: my unwavering conviction, over more than half a century, that painting is closer to music than it is to literature and symbolism. This conviction has solidified through practice and multifaceted study, initially focusing on the horizontal stave, followed by Johann Sebastian Bach’s compositions (vertical counterpoint) for an entire year during the rigorous preparation of my second PhD in Aesthetics. My knowledge of music exceeds my literary inclinations, a perspective that explains my "auditory" phase, drawing inspiration from icons like Umm Kulthum, Al-Sunbati, and Shawki. It was during this phase that I began to derive musical modes from the depths of poetry.
Today, I find myself painting in a dual post-modern manner, separating the diagnostic expressive pictorial from geometric abstract artworks (with its lyrical and geometric combinations), guided by Willem de Kooning's approach in the New York School and following in the footsteps of Nicolas de Staël in the existential Paris School. I am not alone in this pursuit. Other artists have embarked on a parallel journey, such as Nazir Nabaa, whose art simultaneously depicted abstraction and his Eastern influences (post-Raphaelism), as well as the prominent Tunisian artist: the master Rafik El Kamel, known for his daily abstractions and parallel orientalist paintings. This leads us to the American postmodern direction, where artists depict both giants of abstraction and realistic paintings, not to mention the pioneers of this trend, including even Pablo Picasso himself.
- Asaad Arabi
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