Albareh Art Gallery to Present “B+”, Zuhair Al Saeed’s first Solo Exhibition.
Albareh Art Gallery, August 2013: Albareh Art Gallery presents “B+”, an exhibition by Bahraini painter Zuhair Al Saeed, on the 6th of October 2013 at 7 p.m. at its premises in Adliya. The exhibition will run until the 24th of October 2013.
The exhibition is inspired by the words of the Syrian poet Adonis, “You say the world is dark, but look around you. Don’t you see that wherever you go, this darkness is full of light? It’s not about seeing the darkness; it’s about discovering the light.” Al Saeed’s B+ (Be Positive) is his first solo in an international gallery bringing together artworks at the intersection between installation and painting, incorporating a physical sense of the material world that demands participation rather than contemplation. Works showcased will include artworks on canvas, paper, as well as some fragments from old furniture.
Al Saeed artworks are replete with traces from primal forms and oscillating movements: With a number of techniques overlapping between oils, watercolors and found materials, Al Saeed evolved from his earlier colorful abstracts on canvas into cleaner color fields in earth tones that blur the distinction between paint and material, leaving behind the pictorial space. B+ opens up as a series of snapshots in which painting subjects are at the margins, presenting us with fragments from the archaeology of the human eye; excavating surfaces, contours, detours, delays, boundaries and lines. The flatness of the color field evaporates into warm textures that are inviting and personal.
However, Zuhair Al Saeed’s work is not melancholy: Almost intuitively inverting the technique of academic painters, who covered their canvases with a dark base paint before taking to the brush, Al Saeed’s canvas appears as if covered in a thick black out of which he is struggling to bring out vivid light, and he recognizes the duality: “Life is made of light and darkness, and no matter how dark reality can get, there’s always hope. This is the balance of life, and if it wasn’t for the existence of darkness, we wouldn’t have appreciated the light.” The clear gladness of white represents his vivid affirmation of the different hues that it is necessary to accept in order to live fully.
At the edge of contemporaneity, the artist’s treatment of images acquires a cinematic quality in which raw materials from the industrial era and primal abstract forms overlap at ease. Yet his practice is rooted in a 50-year-old tradition of abstract painting in Bahrain, from which he nurtured. Zuhair Al Saeed’s paintings offer a fresh glimmer of spiritual light in a world beset by darkness, but yet enjoyable, exciting and ultimately human: “We have to learn how to stay positive, because life is all about hope, and those who lose hope in life, will be forever incomplete in life.” With this exhibition, Al Saeed is consolidating himself as one of Bahrain’s most exciting young painters.
About the artist
Zuhair Al Saeed was born in Bahrain in 1981 and studied fine arts at the University of Bahrain. He participated at Albareh Art Gallery’s group exhibitions “Preludes” and “Displacement” (2013), part of the Artist Leadership Program; the group exhibition Nuzul 88, Seyadi House, Muharraq (2013); the Aseela International Cultural Festival, Morocco (2013); Manamatna, Al Riwaq Art Space (2012) and a number of regional exhibitions. His work has been collected by Bahrain National Museum, HSBC Bank, the Ministry of Culture of the Kingdom of Bahrain, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Kuwait as well by different private collectors in the Middle East, Europe and the US. Al Saaed was the 2009 winner of Zain Dream innovation initiative.
For more information please contact us at 17717707 or art@albareh.com