Beirut, you have always captivated me.
Every time I pass through the streets of this vibrant city, I am overwhelmed with inspiration. This series of Beirut paintings is not about realism, but rather about capturing the city’s essence; the density, the structures, the complexity; all through abstraction.
After the past two years of what we passed through in our country, I felt the desire in my artwork to escape to nature and disconnect from the urban chaos. In my solo show, I explore the duality between the city and the landscape, and I create a dialogue between two different worlds; one rigid and structured, and the other fluid and soft.
The city and the landscape are two different worlds; what is in common is how they transform space. In some ways, the city is a landscape shaped by humans, with abstract representation and fragmented structures. Its density and chaos contrast with the open, flowing space of nature. This duality between nature and urbanism I explore in my collages. The layers of Kraft papers can be seen as a way to layer different realities. The idea of assembling and reinventing elements symbolize how I percieve both the city and nature as something fragmented yet unified.
The contrast between the structured forms of the city and the open, flowing quality of the landscape is an experimental process for me. Seemingly, collage, painting and embroidery intertwine in a visual dialogue. Kraft paper, the main element in my compositions, connect and create a bridge between these parallel worlds.
This series invites viewers to reflect on the delicate balance between these two worlds and how, despite their differences, are unified by the techniques I use, as well as the fusion of materials and mediums. I aim to reinvent my perception of space. Nature with its organic forms and harmonious patterns offers a contrast to the complex structures of the city. And yet, through my artistic approach, both worlds are stitched together by the same methods.
Layla Dagher
Against the fatal quietude
New, astounding, powerful, and confident is Layla Dagher’s latest exhibition. It advances with assured steps, not horizontally but structurally, in the fabric of the painting and its chromatic and architectural composition.
This is the result of a painting that reflects on the process through which it finds its futurity, leaning on the legacy of its distinctive experiences in handling natural landscapes on one hand, and urban spaces on the other. These two legacies are fully integrated in the exhibition—twin-like, interwoven. In fact, they form the foundation for a coherent and expressive compositional world, with a solidarity and unity that is unmistakable.
It is indeed a world in which the painting does not disavow its past, but rather ‘reinvents’ it as never before. And here we are; facing a painting that enables this familiar,calm, narrative past to find its way into a forthcoming life. One that engages with the complexities of the current era, probes the questions of art, tests them, confronts them, argues with them, and harmonizes with them.
And in doing all this, it moves beyond confession, preserving instead symbols and meanings, focusing its compositional and investigative energy on how to harmonize details,elements, tools, additions, collages, and colors so they materialize into a single orchestral structure—scenic and urban—that unlocks the horizon for the painting, making it fruit of today’s diverse artistic rebirths.
Whilst reading the varied lives within the painting, the ‘cunning’ calmness perceived by the eye undoubtedly reflects the artist’s refusal to settle for what is ready-made, familiar, conventional, or reassuring in landscape or urban-scene paintings.
That same ‘cunning’ calmness also reflects the patient and precise effort surrounding the act of composing, and the experimental culture that unceasingly seeks out what empowers it to confront the hardships of contemporary life, to absorb and express them—an indication of the unique quality of Layla Dagher’s work.
The exhibition is in search of a painting that escapes the realm of fatal quietude—and it succeeds in finding its pursuit.Therein lies its secret.
Akl Awit
