Summer Group Exhibition 2016, 01 Jul 2016 — 31 Jul 2016
Exhibitions

Summer Group Exhibition 2016

Artspace Dubai presents the Summer Group Exhibition 2016, with works by Lulwah Al Homoud, Mouneer Al Shaarani and Chaouki Chamoun.

Lulwah Al-Homoud is from Riyadh, where she majored in sociology at King Saud University, and was the first Saudi to complete a MA at Central St. Martin’s College of Art and Design in London. In 2006 she participated in a British museum managed project in which Arab artists were placed to work in schools. She spent six weeks at a school in London exploring calligraphy and Arab design. She participated in and co-curated the 2008 Edge of Arabia exhibition at the SOAS Brunei Gallery. Her work was chosen by Christie’s in April 2009 for their Middle East auction in Dubai.
Lulwah Al Homoud’s style relies on combining and creating a net of forms, lines, Arabic letters, rich colors, and sensory material using bright esthetics. To this end, she uses mixed media and geometric shapes as tools to accentuate her purpose. One can notice in her work an obvious bias to linear and spatial geometry, something that owes itself to the fact that she views it as a fertile source from which to renew her abstract visual vocabulary, and to turn it into a net of complex structures hinting to immortality and providing a feeling of stable equilibrium. She also uses mathematics, both Islamic and Western, to activate the language of audiovisual communication and to deconstruct Islamic ornament into new, stimulating, and visually exciting patterns. Insofar as Arabic letters are concerned, she takes the liberty of deconstructing them, deriving their symbolic dimensions, and then using these symbols into simple lines that serve as raw material for new designs. Her abstract paintings in Arabic calligraphy thus undulate between religious traditions and artistic vision, and cannot be clearly defined as belonging to either camp; Arabic calligraphy, after all, has already undergone the transformation from Qoranic writing material to secular contemporary art, and it is by this rationale that she works; after all, she views calligraphy as an art that expresses spiritual life but rather an internal hum, which is why she believes in the art of calligraphy as a being through which one can open onto the entire world. She describes her work as being abstract and spiritual. She describes herself as being ‘in a state of dialogue with the soul, not the physical. [My work] belies universal philosophies and visions that surpass time and place. The letter and the simple geometric shape have deep meanings that express faith.

Mouneer Al- Shaarani is a renowned calligrapher, designer and writer, living and working in Syria. Born in Syria, he graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus (1977). He studied under the great Syrian calligrapher, Badawi Al Dirany. His work has been exhibited internationally in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunis, Algeria, Morocco, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Yugoslavia, India, England and the USA. He is highly regarded across the globe for introducing uniquely innovative calligraphic styles and for taking his inspiration from everything that surrounds him, old and new.

Born in Lebanon, in 1942, Chaouki Chamoun received his Diploma of Higher Studies from the Fine Art Institute at the Lebanese University in 1972. The first in his class, he was awarded a six-year fellowship to pursue his graduate studies in the United States and rejoin its faculty upon his return. In 1975, he received his Master of Fine Arts from Syracuse University, N Y. And from 1975 to 1979 he was a full time fellow at the PhD program at New York University, NY concentrating on Aesthetics and Studio Art.
Chamoun has had over thirty One-Man Shows since 1975; exhibiting in New York, Beirut and other cities in the United States, Europe, Hong Kong and the Arab World; represented mainly by Epreuve d’Artiste Gallery in Beirut. He also has participated in over fifty five group Art Shows and biennales since 1968 including Rochester Memorial museum 1974, Lowe Art Centre, Syracuse1975, Soursouk Museum, Beirut, 1984-2008, Europ’Art, Geneva 1999, Sotheby’s Exhibit and Auction London Oct.2007, Christie’s Exhibit and Auction Dubai October 2007 and April 2008, Art-Paris at Abu Dhabi 2007-2008, Alexandria Biennale 2008, The Katzen Art Museum Washington DC 2010 and Abu Dhabi Art fair, MENASA art fair Beirut 2010-2012.

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