This was a retrospective of Ibrahim El-Salahi's work entitled ' A Visionary Modernist'. Once again, I had never heard of the artist before entering the exhibition.
The first room contained some very large works on paper showing groups of flamenco dancers. The forms were simplified and reminded me a bit of art Deco posters. There was an impression of fluid movement there.
In El- Salahi's work there is a fusion of his westerns training (at the Slade School in London) with calligraphy and traditional islamic symbols such as the crescent which regularly appear in his work. His human forms are simplified and sometimes elongated. I was paeticularly drawn to his compositions which seemed to grow organically from the centre of the canvas. In fact the artist says that this is how he prefers to work - he starts with a small image at the centre and gradually expands the drawing outwards - adding extra sheets of paper as needed. This makes for some very bold compositions.
Visions of the Tomb
Funeral and the Crescent
Having completed the section of the course on mark making and tone I was very interested in El-Salahi's ink drawings. Some of these were monumentally large but on getting close up it was clear what a large variety of marks had been made and what great fluidity there was in this mark making.
Strangely, my greatest emotional response in this exhibition came from some of his smaller and less imposing works from the series 'The Tree'. Looking at these I had an intense feeling of nostalgia coupled with some melancholy. An odd reaction given that these are brightly coloured pieces of innocent trees. It took me a while to figure this out. Eventually I realised that these were based on a Sudanese woven fabric and that this fabric reminded me very much of the colours and fabrics from postcards that my mother used to send to me from South America when I was a child. How weird that this unassuming picture should bring out in me a sense of loss and loneliness. I know I was drawn to the composition again because of its organic growth from the centre of the page. Clearly my reaction did not reflect the artist's intention as he states it is about the artist's individual agency and role in society he talks about the tree as a complete spiritual individual with roots bound to the earth and branches extending skywards.
I think one of the other aspects of these pictures which brought out nostalgia is the way the picture is constructed from sections of multiple lines in varying colours. This reminded me very much of doodling pictures I used to do when I was a teenager. My school exercise books were often covered in doodles constructed from repetition of lines one after the other and developing as they went across the page. It is strange how a work of are can inspire memories and communicate with a person unintentionally.
The Tree
The Tree
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