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BRONZE SCULPTURE | Maysaloun Faraj Flipbook PDF
Sculpture by Maysaloun Faraj acts a springboard into a language without words. Her pieces are delicate and lyrical – sil
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MAYSALOUN FARAJ Bronze Sculpture 2010-17
MAYSALOUN FARAJ
MAYSALOUN FARAJ Bronze Scupture 2010-17
BRONZE SCULPTURE 2010-17
“I aim for sculpture that is engineering as much as it is art pushing the boundaries to what is physically, mathematically, chemically and gravitationally possible.”
Sculpture by Maysaloun Faraj acts a springboard into a language without words. Her pieces are delicate and lyrical – silent letters in a lifelong correspondence with the divine. They incite profound reflection on the endless possibilities of matter in relation to the universe, as well as embodying the artist’s unstoppable sincerity, which passes fervently through sinuous twists of bronze before settling more restfully in slender tablets of clay. There is a ripe and startling physicality to the sculpture even though on the surface each is fragile, fragmented and often executing an impossible balancing act: Golden Bird (2008) features fragments of white earth-stone carefully arranged one upon the other and exquisitely tipped with gold as if a seal to a sacred scroll. I’jaz (2012) presents a thin column of bronze that weaves its way skywards, stretching almost to breaking point but never once toppling. In its endurance, the riddling structure resembles a calligraphic dance, rising in a swaying path towards the void in the heat of risk, ecstasy and triumph.
The innocence and magnificent naivety that ebbs from the sculpture comes directly from its continual aspiration towards simplicity. There is a feeling that the artist is constantly sifting and extracting any distraction to her work’s essence so that each line, each hue, is entirely a product of necessity. She compulsively puts her materials to the test, intensely working them in such a way that sees her master her own hand, erasing any obvious signs of human intervention and forging pieces that appear deliciously untouched, but arranged with great skill. It is striking that both the fired earth-stone and the cooled bronze consistently manage to retain their soft suppleness while bearing force in their crisp lines as well as in the slow, strong bends of the material. Even though the shapes making up each sculpture tend to assume their own mysterious order, the unusual harmony of line and colour invariably points at a sense of wholeness, of plenitude. And the balance of elements, though at times in apparent defiance of gravity, is all the more marked for its successful amalgamation of apparently
Tommorrow My Heart Will Heal 30x16x13cm 2010
discordant parts. One particularly recurrent motif - the thin white crescent resting atop a block of clay - hints once again at the universal nature of Faraj’s approach, her referencing of works by a generation of Iraqi artists before her, including Jewad Selim, and much further back in time, to the symbols as well as techniques explored in the visual cultures of Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. Asma Allah al-Husna (2008) is a clay project in which Faraj specifically draws upon a method of Mesopotamian printmaking dating as early as 5000BC. This awareness of her cultural heritage grounds her practice in “the evolutionary thread of art in Iraq” to quote Lorna Selim; the personal, intimate nature of her sculpture creates an atmosphere of accessibility and openness, allowing new viewers with no previous knowledge of Iraqi history or art to join that same dialogue with ease. And ultimately, this fusion of ancient and contemporary is well-suited to Faraj’s aspiration to contribute, through her art, to defining the identity of a culture and a people. As a whole, the artist’s
oeuvre reveals a vision that is luminous and progressive. Each sculpture offers a distinct sensation of oneness dissolving, transforming then redefining itself, first into clay, now most recently bronze, in an ongoing act of material purification. As a series, they tell wordless stories of how the brokenness of things is in fact the necessary beginning of a journey towards greatness, with former wounds evolving into sacred scars, testifying to a life fully lived, and within that - a verve, a glimpse of the divine. Kate Busby . Barcelona 2012
Kate Busby is an alumnus of Oxford University and a freelance writer. She has worked with Milton Keynes Gallery, Edge of Arabia, JAMM Art and regularly publishes articles on contemporary art. She currently lives and works in Barcelona where she is a co-curator at the Madame La Marquise art space.
Dham’ma Allah Noor 45x45x9cm 2010
I’jaz 155x23x7cm 2014/17
AlRahman AlRahim 145x12x7cm 2010
Lightning: Allahu Khairun Hafidhan wa Huwa Arham AlRahimeen 60x50x30cm 2017
“Growing up between the USA where I was born, Baghdad where I studied Architecture, and London where I live and work, I contemplate the intersection of place and identity and explore the complex dynamics between overarching societal concerns and the intimate, often pondering on spirituality and the transience of human existence. Architectural discipline informs my aesthetic and it is this tension between opposites that intrigues me most.” The art of Maysaloun Faraj is in notable public collections including The British Museum (UK), National Museum for Women in the Arts (USA), Rotterdam Werldmuseum (Netherlands), Barjeel Foundation (UAE), Agha Khan Foundation (Canada), National Museum (Jordan) as well as important private collections including the Turin based designer/architect/ collector Hussain Ali Harba, Ali al-Husry and the late Basil Rahim. Faraj was a resident at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2015/17/18). She lives and works London.
Maysaloun Faraj at the Art Bronze Foundry, London with Maryam II 2012
MAYSALOUN FARAJ [email protected] WWW.MFARAJ.COM
MAYSALOUN FARAJ [email protected] WWW.MFARAJ.COM