21 September 2012
BEIRUT: Oscar Wilde once observed that “a man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.”
It would be interesting to know whether Syrian artist Rania Moudaress Silva was aware of the Irish author’s witticism when she was assembling the work of her first solo exhibition, which is largely comprised of women’s portraits, all of which are entirely fictional.
The series can be seen as an aesthetic escape from grim reality.
Eight of the 12 mixed-media works in “Rêve-évolution,” currently on show at Hamra’s Art Circle Gallery, are surreal portraits of non-existent women.
The Damascus-based artist has been working on the series since 2010, several months before the uprisings in Syria began, and has tried to continue her work in the midst of the turmoil of the revolution.
“The title started to come up in my mind during my work because I was doing research about dreams and [consciousness],” the young artist explains.
“I was trying to [explore] the relationship between dreams and reality, to see if it has any kind of relationship to the future or the past. I was trying to figure out what dreaming is, from a scientific rather than a romantic point of view.
“It’s mainly about the evolution of dreams,” she continues. “So I put these two words together. It may look like revolution, but actually it has nothing to do with it. But it’s beautiful to think that revolution might mean something like that – it’s coming from a dream that might come true.”
Silva’s pieces share several common motifs. Birds, flowers and blue eyes appear repeatedly in her works. Each work appears to be a portrait, though in fact Silva does not base her faces on any one woman.
“I think faces have something so interesting – you never see two faces that look the same,” Silva says. “When I walk in the street I always look at people’s faces ... It’s something really strange that nobody looks the same – it’s amazing. I never draw the same woman. It’s always different faces. I make up the face by making a collage ... I play God a little.”
In spite of – or perhaps because of – the want of a single model for Silva’s faces, they all look eerily similar.
Big blue eyes topped with heavy brows stare out at the viewer from amid strikingly symmetrical features.
Full mouths are neatly closed or slightly parted, but never smiling, while above them are Silva’s distinctive noses, made up of a series of sketched circles and ovals in varying sizes.
This gives them a patchwork look, calling to mind the cartilage and bone beneath the even surface of the skin.
Among and across these faces Silva introduces other thematic elements, bringing an echo of the surreal to the works. In “Seeing,” a flock of tiny black birds wheel and circle in front of a giant, red-haired woman, who stares straight ahead, cheeks flushed to a delicate pink, blue eyes wide, impossibly red lips slightly parted in surprise or alarm.
“Blue” is similarly surreal. A light-haired woman with enormous blue eyes peers out from among the branches of a tree or some other foliage, whose stems, seeds and petals are all the same hue as her irises.
While her mouth, eyebrows and nose can be glimpsed among the vegetation, her eyes blend into the flowers like some strange fruit.
Silva’s father was Fateh Moudaress, a well-known Syrian artist and one of the leaders of his country’s modernist movement, who died in 1999.
His daughter is reluctant to use his name, she says, as she wants to establish herself independently. That’s why she works under the name “Silva,” though the lingering “Moudaress” that precedes Silva at the exhibition arguably betrays her identity somewhat.
Fateh Moudaress’ work focused on socio-political themes and the problems faced by everyday people living in Syria in the 1960s.
By contrast his daughter’s work is resolutely apolitical.
“I hate politics, I don’t have anything to do with it,” she says.
“Some people should be behind the scenes, doing something else. We don’t always have to go and shout. This doesn’t change anything ... I also need something in life. If you cut yourself off completely, just to feel sad, you’re not going to be useful at all.”
“Rêve-évolution” is an interesting collection of works, though overall they seem slightly unfinished, as though the exhibition is a glimpse into the artist’s sketchbook.
This may be due to Silva’s stylized approach – many of the pieces would not look out of place in a graphic novel.
While each of these faces has its own distinctive character, there is a sense that the story behind them has somehow yet to have been told.
Rania Moudaress Silva’s “Rêve-évolution” is up at Art Circle Gallery in Hamra until Oct. 11. For more information please call 03-027-776
Copyright The Daily Star 2012.
