The Fabric of Society

The Courtyard Gallery

National Museum of Ireland - Country Life

“The Fabric of Society” is a series of 12 paintings inspired by the patternings from a “Jaima”, the traditional tent of the nomadic people of Western Sahara. This body of work is a conversation on the societal challenges of retaining one’s tradition, identity, and ancestral roots in the face of adversity, colonialism, and capitalism. Our perception of these paintings alternates between the traditional and the modern. The concept of taking sides is considered while exploring abstraction through transitions of games.

THE CONCEPT

Games are the formula for my art making process, a metaphor for my political concerns as well as a commentary on the competitive nature of humans.

Garry Kasparov vs Deep Blue, 1996 - 1997. This series of 12 chess games marked a turning point in history for being the first time a reigning world chess champion ever lost against a supercomputer in normal chess tournament settings. The ultimate battle of human vs machine (artificial intelligence) is explored in my 12 paintings revealing the fragility of the human race. The 12 paintings were worked on simultaneously to mimic a chess grandmaster’s playing multiple opponents at the same time. I see the 13,000 year old cave drawings of the Erqueyez Lemgasem archaeological site in Western Sahara as the opening game to our existence, and the chess battles with computers as entering our endgame.

"His work has always hovered over the worlds of the political and the personal. In these dense and beautiful trackings of a chess game between human and machine minds, he encourages us to think of games, all kinds of games, war games, where territories are moved, peoples are shoved around like so many chess pieces; the overlapping of interests; the displacement of mind and body, of cultures, of belief systems.“ Alice Maher

THE PROCESS

“Green”, and the absence of it, was a term frequently used in Western Sahrawi conversations with greener pastures reflective of their desires for freedom and attaining access to their natural resources. However, using green for my pallet seems contradictory to the reality of life in the desert. It nonetheless transports me to the stories told by the nomads of what once was. With this limited and challenging pallet I can hone in on and respond to the nature, textures and environment of Western Sahara. My paintings are fundamentally a battle between the concept in painting and the process of painting, between thinking and feeling. The breaking free from the shackles of thoughts, or even “the dancing with chains”.