Like Russian Dolls, We Nest in Previous Selves. Series 2018/2019
After completing my art residency in Italy in July 2016, I decided to take 3 days rest in Rome before heading back to Kuwait, since I had been working back to back whereby right after installing my work at the 56thVenice Biennale in May 2015, I began executing my series It’s a Mad World, which took a year to create and was exhibited in April 2016 (after which I flew to Italy for my artist residency, prepared a mini-series called The Four Seasons of Love, and then had It’s a Mad World exhibited in Beirut in September 2016). The point is, I was to rest. Even if for 3 days. But on my second night in Rome, I was awoken by a dream, vivid in its lucidity, appearing to show me images of my next work: a series of artworks that hark back to portraits of characters from society perched high on throne-like chairs, against Renaissance style backdrops of muted dark hues. These characters held an oversized bottle of alcohol that carried – literally – messages in visual form.
Thereafter – throughout the summer of 2016 - resulted a process of conceptualizing further and trips to Dubai to locate an empty used oversized 6-liter bottle of alcohol. Returning from Beirut in September 2016, standing on the bus that takes the passengers from the airplane to the airport, I noticed a woman standing between her 3 children, 2 boys that looked like they could have been from any nationality in jeans and T-shirts, but the young girl and her mother were in black Abbaya that was particularly severe, tightly raised up to cover half the chin, and sternly lowered to cover half the forehead. There was nothing religious about the mother’s austerity; it was more of an authoritarian austere morality and self-righteousness. It was a cultural barrier that limited her perception and outlook on life, as opposed to a religious one. There was something uncompromising and intimidating about that mother, and I realized in those minutes on that bus, observing said mother, that SHE was my audience. Whenever a journalist had asked in the past: who is your audience, who are you trying to reach, to influence? I have always responded “the masses”. But standing on the bus, studying the harsh self-righteousness of that woman, an epiphany hit me: I need to speak to THAT woman, I need to influence THAT woman, to open her mind and help her raise her children non-discriminatorily, to let her loosen her Abbaya slightly so she is not the bearer of a fundamentalist generation anymore, so that she is not propagating the patriarchy anymore. That daughter of hers is being raised and brainwashed already to be another tight-lipped, uncompromising mother in the future, thus affecting generations to come; those sons of hers are already being raised to be chauvinistic and to treat women with inferiority and misguided judgments of disgruntled morality. I thought to myself: If I can’t have this woman attend my show and listen to what I have to say, then I have to metaphorically bring her there. So I saw that woman as part of my next series; I saw her sitting on a bench looking at a painting, as one does in a museum. Thereafter, I began my research in finding the right mannequins, which I will dress exactly like that woman, and place on benches so that when viewers enter the gallery they will be confused as to whether there are real women in Abbayas sitting on benches observing the paintings. Symbolically, I would be forcing that woman to attend my show, watch my work, engage in that conversation, and leave with the potential to understand the Other’s point of view and possibly consider it. (A year later – a critic at my USA residency at Art Omi International asked me: “what about the girl on that bus?”, to which I responded that I had already reached that girl, that I was already receiving emails from that girl, that that girl was online and connected and engaging with my artwork and with me via social media.)
The characters in The Russian Doll series are mostly perched on chairs; a metaphor for all the positions of power in every Arab state and what they stand for; a symbolic analogy referring to the dogmatic assumption and entitlement of power. It also holds multi-layered nuances of other symbols for me, as it places the character on a chair from which he/she cannot be distracted or moved (they are stuck there until I decide otherwise) and can thus listen to what I have to say. It is therefore a way of controlling the character in the painting, metaphorically speaking.
The Cîroc bottle is a satire to the “Gluten-free” generation, as Ciroc is one of the few alcohols that are gluten-free. Each bottle carries a message: actual visual images that can be seen living inside the giant bottle that is cradled in the lap of the character in the painting. Each message is a visual image that carries socio-political inferences and explores the taboos within the society, as well as the darker thoughts of humankind. Just as the internet harbors The Dark Web, so does the human mind harbor The Dark Mind and The Dark Soul.
The line from Sir Walter Scott’s poem, Marmion, came to my mind: “Oh what a tangled web we weave…” and connected the dots for me for my installation (see The Walk-Through).
Why Russian Doll? This concept was later inspired by a line I read in a poem by one of my favorite American poets, Diane Ackerman, which states: “Like Russian Dolls, we nest in previous selves”. And as I watched the American elections unfold on the TV screen before me, and as I walked in New York, and visited several American cities and spoke to all sorts of American citizens, this line kept recurring. No matter how civilized we think we are, no matter how far we believe we have evolved, no matter how much progress we think we have achieved…we still “nest in previous selves”. In other words, there is still the seed of the barbarian within us, there is still evil inside us, if given a chance to rise from the darkness. But then again, another layer of meaning is the internal human struggle of good versus evil: we all “nest in previous selves” like Russian Dolls; we all work so hard on ourselves to evolve and move forward psychologically, mentally, emotionally, and physically, and yet, there remains inside us the seed of our ancestors, people we never knew, whose blood runs through our veins, whose identity shapes ours despite how much we fight it, whose history haunts us.
After completing my art residency in Italy in July 2016, I decided to take 3 days rest in Rome before heading back to Kuwait, since I had been working back to back whereby right after installing my work at the 56thVenice Biennale in May 2015, I began executing my series It’s a Mad World, which took a year to create and was exhibited in April 2016 (after which I flew to Italy for my artist residency, prepared a mini-series called The Four Seasons of Love, and then had It’s a Mad World exhibited in Beirut in September 2016). The point is, I was to rest. Even if for 3 days. But on my second night in Rome, I was awoken by a dream, vivid in its lucidity, appearing to show me images of my next work: a series of artworks that hark back to portraits of characters from society perched high on throne-like chairs, against Renaissance style backdrops of muted dark hues. These characters held an oversized bottle of alcohol that carried – literally – messages in visual form.
Thereafter – throughout the summer of 2016 - resulted a process of conceptualizing further and trips to Dubai to locate an empty used oversized 6-liter bottle of alcohol. Returning from Beirut in September 2016, standing on the bus that takes the passengers from the airplane to the airport, I noticed a woman standing between her 3 children, 2 boys that looked like they could have been from any nationality in jeans and T-shirts, but the young girl and her mother were in black Abbaya that was particularly severe, tightly raised up to cover half the chin, and sternly lowered to cover half the forehead. There was nothing religious about the mother’s austerity; it was more of an authoritarian austere morality and self-righteousness. It was a cultural barrier that limited her perception and outlook on life, as opposed to a religious one. There was something uncompromising and intimidating about that mother, and I realized in those minutes on that bus, observing said mother, that SHE was my audience. Whenever a journalist had asked in the past: who is your audience, who are you trying to reach, to influence? I have always responded “the masses”. But standing on the bus, studying the harsh self-righteousness of that woman, an epiphany hit me: I need to speak to THAT woman, I need to influence THAT woman, to open her mind and help her raise her children non-discriminatorily, to let her loosen her Abbaya slightly so she is not the bearer of a fundamentalist generation anymore, so that she is not propagating the patriarchy anymore. That daughter of hers is being raised and brainwashed already to be another tight-lipped, uncompromising mother in the future, thus affecting generations to come; those sons of hers are already being raised to be chauvinistic and to treat women with inferiority and misguided judgments of disgruntled morality. I thought to myself: If I can’t have this woman attend my show and listen to what I have to say, then I have to metaphorically bring her there. So I saw that woman as part of my next series; I saw her sitting on a bench looking at a painting, as one does in a museum. Thereafter, I began my research in finding the right mannequins, which I will dress exactly like that woman, and place on benches so that when viewers enter the gallery they will be confused as to whether there are real women in Abbayas sitting on benches observing the paintings. Symbolically, I would be forcing that woman to attend my show, watch my work, engage in that conversation, and leave with the potential to understand the Other’s point of view and possibly consider it. (A year later – a critic at my USA residency at Art Omi International asked me: “what about the girl on that bus?”, to which I responded that I had already reached that girl, that I was already receiving emails from that girl, that that girl was online and connected and engaging with my artwork and with me via social media.)
The characters in The Russian Doll series are mostly perched on chairs; a metaphor for all the positions of power in every Arab state and what they stand for; a symbolic analogy referring to the dogmatic assumption and entitlement of power. It also holds multi-layered nuances of other symbols for me, as it places the character on a chair from which he/she cannot be distracted or moved (they are stuck there until I decide otherwise) and can thus listen to what I have to say. It is therefore a way of controlling the character in the painting, metaphorically speaking.
The Cîroc bottle is a satire to the “Gluten-free” generation, as Ciroc is one of the few alcohols that are gluten-free. Each bottle carries a message: actual visual images that can be seen living inside the giant bottle that is cradled in the lap of the character in the painting. Each message is a visual image that carries socio-political inferences and explores the taboos within the society, as well as the darker thoughts of humankind. Just as the internet harbors The Dark Web, so does the human mind harbor The Dark Mind and The Dark Soul.
The line from Sir Walter Scott’s poem, Marmion, came to my mind: “Oh what a tangled web we weave…” and connected the dots for me for my installation (see The Walk-Through).
Why Russian Doll? This concept was later inspired by a line I read in a poem by one of my favorite American poets, Diane Ackerman, which states: “Like Russian Dolls, we nest in previous selves”. And as I watched the American elections unfold on the TV screen before me, and as I walked in New York, and visited several American cities and spoke to all sorts of American citizens, this line kept recurring. No matter how civilized we think we are, no matter how far we believe we have evolved, no matter how much progress we think we have achieved…we still “nest in previous selves”. In other words, there is still the seed of the barbarian within us, there is still evil inside us, if given a chance to rise from the darkness. But then again, another layer of meaning is the internal human struggle of good versus evil: we all “nest in previous selves” like Russian Dolls; we all work so hard on ourselves to evolve and move forward psychologically, mentally, emotionally, and physically, and yet, there remains inside us the seed of our ancestors, people we never knew, whose blood runs through our veins, whose identity shapes ours despite how much we fight it, whose history haunts us.
It's a Mad World
April/May 2016. Solo exhibition by Shurooq Amin, curated by Martina Corgnati. Ayyam Gallery in collaboration with CAP.
4 years after the shut down of my 2012 show in Kuwait (It's a Man's World) and the subsequent censorship of my paintings, I was fortunate enough to have been invited back to show in my native country by CAP (Contemporary Art Platform). Since 2012, I had only exhibited my work abroad, represented and supported by Ayyam Gallery, who believed in me, gave me a platform to raise my voice uncensored, and invited me to show my work in Dubai and London. It's a Mad World, my 2016 series, was a collaboration with my representative gallery Ayyam (Dubai) and CAP gallery (Kuwait), and curated by the inspiring Martina Corgnati with whom I spent time at the 56th Venice Biennale where she curated the pavilion I was lucky to be a part of: Contemporary Practices Pavilion.
It is only fitting that the original title for this show – Apocalypso Now – should be changed to It's a Mad World, to arrive full circle from my last show in Kuwait, It's a Man's World. As simple as the title is, as meaningful as it is for me, since the pattern (semantically, syntactically, and phonetically) – and full circle – from It’s a Man’s World to It’s a Mad World is explicit.
It's a Mad World consists of 18 artworks and an installation (see below).
The Installation: The Last Sip:
The Last Sip (2016) takes the 13-figures-at-a-table configuration of The Last Supper (Da Vinci) and The Last Straw (Popcornographic, 2013). The Last Sip is set up in a dark room, lit only by spotlights and projectors, with a table in the center, strewn with sand and empty alcohol bottles. There are empty alcohol bottles hanging from the ceiling as well, casting their shadows onto the projection of the painting The Last Sip. The 13 figures in The Last Sip are clones of the artist, repetitive figures undergoing various emotions related to the effects of alcoholism in the artist’s life, past and present. This installation is not only site specific, but more significantly, geographically specific, as it relates to the stories of Kuwait, a country where alcohol is forbidden yet is purchased relatively easily for high prices on the black market, causing it to be a rare commodity that – when one is successful in obtaining – becomes a weapon of self destruction, as it is consumed immediately. It also becomes a weapon against others, since a society that is not accustomed to the surrounding effects of booze is careless and reckless, driving drunk and living in denial to the disease called alcoholism. Since there is no help for alcoholics, and no support groups for their families, men, women and teenagers suffer alone and in silence, until it is too late. And since there is no admittance that alcohol is rampant in the country, there are no laws to protect people from drunk drivers, nor repercussions for accidents related to alcoholism. There is a salient yet silent gap in the law and in the society, leading to the destruction of familial relationships, and lives. The artist has throughout her life suffered the consequences of the disease in her relationships with alcoholic loved ones; and as a paralyzed onlooker, watching her loved ones suffer, yet unable to help them, has decided to speak up about this disease.
56th International Venice Biennale
All the World’s Futures, curated by Okwui Enwezor
May 9 to November 22, 2015
Shurooq Amin
Installation: We’ll Build This City on Art and Love
Pavilion: Contemporary Practices Pavilion. In the Eye of the Thunderstorm: Effervescent Practices from the Arab World and Asia.
Curated by Martina Corgnati. Commissioner: Omar Donia.
Visually:
Room Installation with Three Projections: The viewer walks into a 4 meter x 4 meter room. There are 3 projectors hanging from the ceiling, attached to media players that are running a separate USB for each projector (electrician is required to arrange the wiring of the room so that all wires are not visible to the viewer and are running inside the ceiling; hence, a removable false ceiling/box may need to be fixed between the projectors and the actual ceiling). The projection facing the viewer (on the 8 meter wall) is that of a painting called MARA7=7ARAM (Fun = Forbidden), which is 3 meters wide. Hovering in front of the projection with translucent (invisible) strings from the ceiling is a piano installation (reflecting the piano in the projected painting; therefore, also 3 meters long), so that the overall image is akin to a hologram or a 3D effect. On the right hand wall is a projection of a painting called A Tangled Tale (2 meters wide), and in front of that, also, hanging from the ceiling with invisible string, is an installation sculpture of metal piping, mimicking the piping in the projected painting, thus inducing the same 3D effect for the viewer (also 2 meters wide). On the left hand wall is a projection of a painting called Pollutoland (2 meters wide), in front of which also hangs a 2-meter wide installation sculpture of twigs and branches of dead trees (from translucent strings attached to the ceiling), reflecting the pollution-image in the projected painting. The floor is covered with sand, reflecting the desert environment of the Arabian Gulf.
Conceptually:
MARA7 = 7ARAM (Fun = Forbidden): The number 7 in contemporary Arabic slang linguistics refers to the letter “H” in English but is pronounced phonetically from the back of the throat – a very guttural sound- so that it cannot be reproduced in any other language. Using this contemporary social-media induced phenomenon, it is applied to the title of this artwork to create a lucid irony between the images of “fun” and celebration portrayed in the artwork versus the title, which clearly states that “fun” is forbidden in an Islamic Arabian Gulf society. The images of people young and old, religious and liberal - from all walks of life - dancing, playing instruments, playing sports, laughing, falling in love, showing how celebration of life is beautiful and energizing and how it brings people together, is juxtaposed with the voice of fundamental religious cultures that preaches that fun is unacceptable in this world, that dancing, music and pleasure are prohibited. The title states that “fun” is taboo, utilizing the number 7 as the letter “h” in Arabic, and the word “marah” is defined as “fun”, yet in most Arabian Gulf cultures is considered “haram”; in other words “taboo”. By playing with the image, utilizing it as a mirror-image of one word for another, whereby the text “mara7” is actually “7aram” spelled backwards, the powerful sardonicism of the concept is emphasized. The image and the title are inseparable: one playing off the other in a ping-pong atmosphere of incongruity. The artwork deals with the concept of taboo in Islamic Arabian Gulf society.
Pollutoland: Pollutoland deals with the concept of pollution in the Arabian Gulf both micro-cosmically and macro-cosmically, with this particular image focusing on sea pollution in Kuwait. The beaches that are superficially cleaned up and blanketed with a facade of beauty for the tourists are foregone, and the work focuses on the majority of the Arabian Gulf, in remote areas untended by tourists. Navigating between the public space of the dead-tree-and-garbage-encrusted surface of the sea, and the private space of the oil-and-garbage-swamped bottom of the sea, this image engages the viewers' senses with both emotional and factual appeals. There is beauty even behind the ugliness, and a stereotypically repulsive image, unwanted and neglected, can actuate hope in the viewer, thus instigating proactivity. Pollutoland transforms the disheartening mantle of sea debris into a whimsical scene with fairies and children cleaning up and purifying the flotsam and jetsam left behind by both the insouciant negligence of people (as in the detritus of plastic bottles, nylon bags, soda drinks, etc) and institutions (as in the oil spills and other chemical contamination).
A Tangled Tale: A Tangled Tale addresses the corruption that lends itself to delayed projects, and hence, a stagnant society, arrested development and regression as opposed to progression over time. A Tangled Tale is a scene from a delayed construction site in Kuwait, one of the myriad projects delayed indefinitely for years due to copious corruption, from bribery, to insider trading of government tenders, to multifarious unresolved "committees". A motif of whimsy, humor, children and fairies dilutes the grim potentially perilous subject. The flowers, however, are wilted, and the new generation are confronted with ample building, reconstructing, considerable threading and sewing and stitching, before future generations can reap positive benefits after this generation's destruction.
Despite its depiction of three complex plights of the region, these three artworks, with their projections, sculptures and installations, forge a triangular relationship that inaugurates hope for the viewer regarding not just the future of the Arabian Gulf, but all the world’s futures. The combination of bold color, motifs of nature, the fantastical whimsy of fairies and angels, and the act of reconstruction and fabrication in the images infiltrates socio-political taboos, esoteric contamination, ostensible pollution and corruption, and takes the viewer to a future of consummate hope and boundless potential for growth and progress.
Piece of the Pie: Who Stole the Tarts? Mixed media on canvas, 200 cm x 150 cm. 2014. Dubai/ London.
We'll Build This City on Art and Love
We'll Build This City on Art and Love (2014/2015), a spin-of from the eighties song We'll Build This City on Rock 'n' Roll, is a title that takes on both a serious and sarcastic connotation, with the simple straightforward meaning of re-building cities, minds, and beliefs that have been destroyed / deconstructed due to corruption and dogmatic, hypocritical ideologies. Most titles of paintings are a twist on chapters from Lewis Carrol's books Alice in Wonderland, The Hunting of the Snark, etc. Each title gives humor to an otherwise grave issue. By highlighting issues like corruption, bribery, delayed government projects, and other issues considered taboo, like love and marriage in the Muslim world, the series is a cry for peace both in the region and within ourselves.
A Tale of Two Muslims, from the Popcornographic series. Ayyam Gallery. Dubai. 2013.
Popcornographic
Popcornographic (2013), as a title, stemmed from my daughter's innocent response to the shut down of my It's a Man's World show in March 2012. Why Popcornographic? The title is my daughter's childish word, but it makes a mockery of the authorities' definition of “pornography”, a word they used when referring to my work. Furthermore, each title of each artwork in this new series is an analogy of some form of literary masterpiece, be it book or painting. I've chosen these specific titles because they belong to books that were banned at some point, or because their subject matter relates to my message, or because – quite simply – they're funny, cheeky, and enlighten with humor. The topics that Popcornographic deals with are all considered taboo in the Middle East, whether it is tackling the ramifications of subjective censorship or the disturbing phenomenon of child marriages or even the art of tattoos on Arab skin.
It's a Man's World
It's a Man's World (2012) takes over where Society Girls left off, hence exploring the other side of Middle Eastern society: men. The title's irony is not lost in the images, most of which depict a hedonistic, taboo world of men. The images portray the dichotomy of the Arab man: religious preacher versus weekend alcoholic; political activist versus weekend party-goer; conservative father versus playboy; environmentalist versus smoker. Our society, by the very nature of its sharia-run politics, cannot exist without double standards, hypocrisy, and secret private lives. In this new work, I choose simply to depict what I've seen, and expose the untold truth of society men.
Take Me To Heaven, from The Bullet Series. London, 2011.
The Bullet Series
In The Bullet Series (2011), the paintings are shot by a rifle with a small Hornet bullet, an allegory of society's murder of human rights, and freedom of speech and choice. Inevitably, bullets are etched into our Middle Eastern politics, history, culture, and religion. Our history and our current political affairs illustrate that the "bullet" is part of our existence. As such, it organically becomes part of any work related to the region. The series as a whole poses controversial religious, political, social, and sexual questions, with some paintings such as My Country is Ill and Take Me To Heaven being central to the work as a study of contemporary Middle Eastern socio-politics, and thus opening up a long overdue dialogue. The images do not profess to judge or dictate; rather, they are a transparent mirror thrust into society, exposing its taboo elements, and it is left up to the viewer to create his/her own perception of what truth is. Each painting is shot at a distance of 50 meters (with no room for error) and the bullet casings are saved and stored in labeled mini containers as part of the work– a reminder of the force, the power, of the issue at hand.
Society Girls 1, from the Society Girls series. Kuwait, 2010.
Society Girls
Society Girls (2009/2010) is based on a raw exploration of modern Arabian Gulf society, metaphorically stripped to reveal the truth. The images do not profess to demean or criticize, nor to glorify and exaggerate. The images do tend to be subtly satirical, however, in juxtaposing traditional elements with contemporary elements. As with all of my recent work, the polarity between East and West is the backbone of my images, which – in this case - is simply a slice of life of society girls in Kuwait. The paintings depict the girls in their embellished, fashionable state, an emblematic prototypical portrayal in which there tends to be a “sameness” of identity. They are frozen in time, enclosed in their own bubble, oblivious to any external tumult. There is a feeling of cloning, of repetition. The Abbaya and the Niqab (veil) – both of which are meant to cover the woman, conceal her beauty from men, constrict her sensuality – are used provocatively, with the Abbaya casually strewn across the sofa here and there, sleek waxed legs exposed, oiled skin revealed, and the veils covering the women's faces are – ironically – an erotic throwback to the days of European courting and glamour. This eroticism is further accentuated by Nizar Qabbani's erotic poetry calligraphed - and intermingled with my own poetry spewed spontaneously - onto the sofa on which the girls sit. There is thus on the one hand the Abbaya, the Niqab, and the underlying nuances of the girls' Islamic religion and socio-cultural traditions, juxtaposed with the exposed flesh, revealing poses, erotic poetry and the undercurrents of sexuality and rebellion. This incongruency is the backbone of Society Girls. The series, as a whole, offers a glimpse of untold truth.
Citizen of the Planet, from the Synthesis series. 2009.
Synthesis
Synthesis (2007/2009) explores innocence lost. Art emerges from passion, raw talent, a strong voice, an unflinching vision, and a mind-shifting philosophy. Having undergone no traditional art schooling has made my vision clear, my voice imposing, and my philosophy rebellious. Inspiration is a continuous blessing, but has become an even more soul-stirring occurrence when stemming from a goal-oriented philosophy: to challenge out-dated social mores, to annihilate stereotypes, to open minds and toss away those blinders that people wear. This is the role of the artist. This is my role in my society. My work is now a conceptual formula of acrylic painting with photography, of text and image combined, a Synthesized, Ekphrastic world where East meets West, where methodologies merge and cultures fuse: where every image is the voice of the silent, every image is a moment captured in time yet infused with the breath of eternal life, and every image is a rebel with a cause.
