Painter Asaad Arabi at Ayyam Gallery in Beirut

Opening ceremony: Thursday 10th of December, 2009 at 7pm to 22/01/2010

Asaad Arabi

Sleepiness 150 x 150 cm - Acrylic on Canvas 2009

Vernissage: From 10/12/2009 – 22/01/2010

Opening ceremony: Thursday 10th of December, 2009 at 7pm

Ayyam Gallery, Beirut is proud to present the latest body of works from Master painter Assad Arabi.

Assad Arabi is an invaluable retrospect on a very particular awakening in the history of Middle Eastern art. Al-Nahda al-Arabiyya was an eminent Arab renaissance, which flourished and accompanied the wave of the innovative sixties. It was set out to embrace and attain the lessons of the western world all whilst similarly respecting the cultural denotations and the local artistic heritage present in the region.

Assad Arabi is an artist who is gorged with the effects of this revolutionary generation and it is in this spirit that the artist decides to take on the nude. In a bold fashion, Arabi is resolved to counteract the increasing hostility towards figurative painting, a practice that predates pre-historic times, and revive the essential and revered artistic matter.

"The general dumbing down of art and culture in an intolerant, bigoted art scene obsessed with the mantra of literalness, depicting nudity has become an adventure, a sin even"

Arabi further strengthens the nude by placing her against images of total concealment.

Ever since the painter embarked on his in the sixties, Arabi has been fascinated with contrast. It started with the duality between black and white that led to the sensation of hot versus cold through to today's nude and veiled.

Ayyam Gallery, Beirut
Beirut Tower, Ground Floor, Zeitoune Street
Across from Beirut Marina
Solidere
Beirut, Lebanon

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