Art on 56th is proud to announce the representation of Lebanese artist Layla Dagher. In honour of her joining the program, the gallery will showcase Escapism, a solo exhibition of her most recent body of work. Produced during the period of lockdown, the paintings reveal the conflict between human beings’ inner and outer worlds, triggered by intense and prolonged feelings of loneliness, isolation, and fear.
Layla Dagher ’s works are complex and layered, much like the human psyche. With a stark interplay of verticality and horizontality, her use of lines creates flat compositions that border on abstraction, reducing forms to their essence.
The organic palette hints at the monotony of quarantine, merging techniques of transparency and opacity. The artist ’s canvases are crowded with pictorial symbols and a rich array of visual elements. Each item tells a story on its own, but when observed as a whole, the painting becomes a diary of kaleidoscopic emotions.
Escapism documents the experience of humans being confronted to themselves. When unable to go outside, they are forced to explore the world that lies within. Dagher reflects on this phenomenon, and in her compositions, she blurs the line between real scenes and imaginary landscapes. The conflict she depicts between the natural world and the realm of fantasy results in a tension between individuals and their environment, a constant state of fluctuation between existence and dissociation.
