Passion for Art
January
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January 2012
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Why “Reflection”?
I believe this period calls for recollection and reflection of self. As an artist, I express my feelings in the colours I use on forms and
shapes based on my recollection on the seasons in life that has passed; times of laughter and embrace, mourning and sorrow,
success and failure. While the spontaneous drips of paint on the chrome surface like woven lace or Arab mashrabiya, partly conceals
the loci of society or life where we see fractions of ourselves - broken, buried, whole, empty, blurred and full - reminiscent of the paths
we traveled to reach where we currently stand. And these paintings without the viewer are just like a vast expanse of everything that is
not there. Once the viewer is face to face with the artwork, it breaks down the barriers; it becomes a journeying encounter like a free-
flowing sense of interaction - a glance of the real, a starting point, waiting to be followed through, allowing the viewer to do the
completing, the reflection of self.
"The chrome convex gives a notion of mutual responsibility between the artwork, the viewer and me."
THE ARTIST reveals his ongoing impulse to build on ‘convex’ - his existing body of work - which resulted in an interesting hybrid of Minimalist aesthetics, post-pop and 'participatory' art.
artBahrain in conversation with
RASHID AL KHALIFA
prior to the opening of his solo exhibition entitled “REFLECTION” at
the Bahrain Financial Harbour Fine Arts Gallery.
Did you first think of the concept of reflection before considering the chrome service or vice versa?
One gets a tinge of reflection from the lacquered convex service I used in 2010. But I needed more than just vague reflection; it is the
concept of reflection that made me decide to use chrome.
Would it be right to classify your new work as participatory art?
With a standard artwork, being a viewer can be rewarding, but the fact remains that the viewer did not contribute to the production of
the artwork and it will remain unchanged no matter what they do. My reason in creating this kind of art is to share and encourage
introspection so that we might pause to measure ourselves to the intangible memories and their role in the everyday processes of
wresting our present from past.
In a way, yes it is participatory art. Depending on how the viewer sees his/her reflection, he/she can come up with his/her own
narrative that is not necessarily the same as mine. For example, when the sunshine streams through the window onto the painting
and bounces off a reflection within, it illuminates and holds a latent surprise. They reveal a maze of forms that is seemingly scattered
about and when the viewer steps in, a relationship begins to emerge and the work becomes a full environment for the viewer to
participate, to explore and experience the surroundings inviting them to fill in the blanks themselves. The viewers become legitimate
interpreters of feelings in real-time and the artistic realm. They are able to tap into the deepest realms of their own psyche and trigger
profound thoughts, emotions and wisdom.
Will these new work have titles?
I wouldn’t want to assign specific titles because it will be limiting the viewer’s implications of his/her findings. Looking at the
geometries, paint drips, the in-betweens of the chromatic reflection juxtaposes a mixed-up inner monologue. Unlike the canvas,
looking at a chrome surface gives a personal reflection that does not displace the experience of looking and feeling in favour of
decoding and acknowledges the existence of the surrounding objects. It does not need a seasoned viewer to read my paintings and
there is no predetermined content to unlock simply because the viewer’s reflection becomes a form in a realm of signification.
Lastly, what sort of effect do you expect from the viewing public?
My paintings and I have always had a one-to-one relationship; at the same time it has a one-to-one relationship with the person
looking at it. The chrome convex gives a notion of mutual responsibility between the artwork, the viewer and me. Having the viewer’s
reflection on the surface delineates the aesthetic gap, it becomes like a team production and I would expect that these works will
create a deeply private visual language revealing the vicissitudes of contemporary times and the past with constant hope for change
and unity.