And From The Lines, What Is Less And Less
Saoud Abdallah begins his work by dispensing from all the virtues and aesthetics of known photography. The thick, transparent colors touch but do not change. The badminton games on the cloth’s surface mean nothing to him, the back and forth is silenced. His work reaches and challenges the limits of meaning and is an abbreviation of final form. Thus, in his shapes, he pursues the limits of the abstract, depicting the barest of lines and spots, while summarizing the elements of movements to their basic form. He experiments with materials drawn from nature, such as grounded rocks and, most prominently, sand. Sand, famously used in construction, is concentrated in his artwork and exploited to its maximum creative capacity. Saoud contemplates form with an eye of cancellation, instead of addition. Cancellation is at the root of his forms, which creates through the removal. By diminishing lines and shapes, his works become minimalistic, bare and instinctual. Hence the underlying scope of his oeuvre and the core of his study is the following: what is less and less…The issue with the aesthetic of loss is the dramatic expression of form, which is communicated through its most utmost concussion. However, Saoud draws just a few lines to allow his eye to conceive the shape that he imagines in his mind. He calls upon the eye to focus on the tip of the thread and follow the completion of form. The eye thus becomes an active participant, as well as a recipient, in the completion of the prescribed form. In the work of Saoud Abdallah, luck plays a dynamic game, instinct a bold role. It unravels and moves with vital motion to produce the legs of a seated or lying woman. At times, black spots are incorporated, and are executed with only a few lines, discovering the silhouette of a woman sitting on the floor or on a chair. A line suffices to yield form. The artworks recall Oriental Art, and are imbued with hints of Chinese and Japanese design. The strong local elements include a female figure in traditional dress, or a woman breastfeeding her child, which
are popular themes of our public environment. Saoud also smoothly portrays naked women in various poses and positions, often accompanied by a cat. Additionally, he depicts men carrying bags on their backs, holding a cane, or women burdened by heavy loads on their shoulders, bent forwards, following only the motion of their dragging feet … The work of Saoud Abdallah is teeming with depths of sensitivity, accuracy with surfaces, and unique Syrian dialect. His vivid visual language is enriched
by the bareness and power of his lines. The abstract is transformed into a powerful narrative tool, while less becomes more.
-Edward Shahda
