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An artistic plethora of projects by a top Bahrain-born Saudi artist, in which he ruminates on a range of subjects like perception, mortality and the zodiac, is now on display in Muharraq.
Faisal Samra’s Anthology art exhibition opened on Sunday at the Bin Matar House in Muharraq and features pieces created by the conceptual artist over the last decade.
“Faisal works in multiple media and famously long series or projects, through which he explores conceptual concerns over prolonged periods and in different forms,” the exhibition’s curator Melissa Enders-Bhatia explained.
“The exhibition oscillates between two great pillars of art: a conceptual exploration of mark-making or artistic creation on the one hand, and the nature of seeing or visual perception on the other.”
Divided into a number of key sections, Faisal’s art takes visitors on a journey through a variety of paradigms.
The first project, named People, explores the process of perception, with each piece featuring fine markings and small figures surrounding a central circular hole.
Within this project, Faisal has created three versions of People’s Box, in different colours, where attendees look “almost voyeuristically” through a central hole into a box, only to be confronted with their own reflection.
Meanwhile, in Magnified Scenes, visitors explore miniature drawings of iconic regional brands surrounded by the project’s trademark masses of figures.
“The audience is asked to look through a magnifying glass but the vision is intentionally blurred so one has to look around the glass to witness the unfolding scene even more intensely,” Melissa added.
The final part of the first project is The Leader series, in which generalised figures of authority like kings, captains and religious leaders are surrounded by a halo-like background, contrasted sharply against the display of inner biological anatomy of the human body.
The pieces seem to hint at a common human biology underlying layers of leadership.
Faisal’s fine markings in the People project continue in the second project on show, Immortal Moment, which was completed between 2015 and 2020.
“In this project, I am capturing my abstract emotions at their peak, at the exact moment of feeling them,” Faisal noted.
“My approach is by intervention, not application and dictation, which allows me to let the emotions thrive through the mind.
“The visual results of this process are fresh and unexpected, with a controlled margin of improvisation.”
Combining charcoal and oil on canvas, the abstract set of Thriving Emotions paintings within the project alternate between grey sections and splashes of colour.
In essence, they capture Faisal’s creativity in different moments, as he envisioned building a positive ‘something’ in a golden never-ending moment.
The piece Coping With The Shock within the project was created during the Covid-19 pandemic, and is currently ongoing.
“In the production of this series of artworks, the physical and visual equivalent of this concept will include the moment of shock, by just a single action, which will be captured by charcoal powder drawings or oil paint,” Faisal explained.
“The study will then lead to a search for a new form of creation, reacting to the shock action and its visual effect, ending with the drawing of the ink dots in a passionate meditative process, with each dot representing a moment in time.”
These explorations have led to a number of pieces, of which the charcoal ones are exhibited within a small space to the side of the exhibition.
Within the Zodiac project, there are 12 pieces corresponding, recreating the animal representing each astrological sign, from a crab for cancer to a bull for Taurus.
Except these creations look terrifyingly beautiful and are Faisal’s way of depicting the natural world in the face of environmental calamities and other shocks.
“The Zodiac is itself a human interpretation of random celestial constellations, reinforcing our need to find meaning and make sense of a senseless world,” Melissa added.
She added that Post Shock Creatures moves beyond the literal and interprets the patterns left behind by the initial impact in new unforeseen ways.
“New creatures emerge on the canvas, deceptively beautiful but nevertheless a new entity as a result of the initial shock impact and the artist’s embrace and response to it,” she added.
Faisal has become famous for his meticulously researched and carefully structured pieces, ever since he graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (National School of Fine Arts) in Paris, France, in 1980.
His works are held in a number of collections including the British Museum, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Culture, Jameel Art Foundation, Pontifical Catholic University in Buenos Aires, Argentina and the Haeinsa Temple Museum in South Korea.
For more details, follow @faisalsamra_ on Instagram.
