.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
'I wanted to paint a common scene of a group of people on an outing or a picnic where the time and cultural attributes of the scene are totally mixed up. Additionally, I wanted to highlight the rising religious and fanatical attitudes and practices increasingly prevailing in our region and particularly the consequences of such dogmas and practices on women's rights and freedom.
I was inspired by Gustave Courbet's painting The Meeting or "Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet" on which in the early eighties, Peter Blake based his painting The Meeting or Have a Nice Day, Mr. Hockney.
In my painting the scene of an imaginary city with whitewashed walls occupies the middle plane, beyond which and up to the level of the horizon extends a green waste land topped by a construction mimicking the Pantheon.
In the foreground, a group of characters borrowed from different cultural and historical references gather in a leisurely outing outside the periphery of their city.
I created a new horizon across the centre of the painting to emphasise the multilayered nature of my composition. The new horizon, which is lined by a sea scene with a palm tree, is reminiscent of the corniche walk-way of Beirut. Most of the featured characters are on wheels as the wheel represents the idea of dynamic motion and change, as opposed to a static status.
The dominating character in this painting is that of "Sybil of Delphi" repainted after the Michelangelo fresco in the Sistine chapel. However she appears in my painting as a mother leaning an arm on the trolley of her baby who is enjoying a ride on a rollerblade and who is not as innocent as a baby should be: he is and in a mature manner, giving a warning to Asuka, the Manga figurine about the apparent intentions to punishing her of the two religious establishment figures in the left centre of the painting.
I borrowed these two figures from Ingres' painting "Jesus among the doctors", 1862. What caught my eye is that one of them is pointing upwards with his forefinger, a common gesture of stating: God is my witness. By posing on top of a pedestal dressed in her bikini outfit, Asuka, outrages the two religious people not only by her brazen appearance but also because, consciously or not, she is pointing her forefinger downward, a gesture understood by the two fanatic men as a sure sign of blasphemy and profanity.
Two other liberal female figures in this painting are enjoying their time, the one kneeling down I borrowed from Peter Blake's painting The Meeting or Have a Nice Day, Mr. Hockney, the other one is mounting a Vespa scooter.
Finally, on the right side, a young girl stands framed by an arched niche. She appears to be a dispassionate witness of the situation.'
(Mohammed El-Rawas, 2012)
I was inspired by Gustave Courbet's painting The Meeting or "Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet" on which in the early eighties, Peter Blake based his painting The Meeting or Have a Nice Day, Mr. Hockney.
In my painting the scene of an imaginary city with whitewashed walls occupies the middle plane, beyond which and up to the level of the horizon extends a green waste land topped by a construction mimicking the Pantheon.
In the foreground, a group of characters borrowed from different cultural and historical references gather in a leisurely outing outside the periphery of their city.
I created a new horizon across the centre of the painting to emphasise the multilayered nature of my composition. The new horizon, which is lined by a sea scene with a palm tree, is reminiscent of the corniche walk-way of Beirut. Most of the featured characters are on wheels as the wheel represents the idea of dynamic motion and change, as opposed to a static status.
The dominating character in this painting is that of "Sybil of Delphi" repainted after the Michelangelo fresco in the Sistine chapel. However she appears in my painting as a mother leaning an arm on the trolley of her baby who is enjoying a ride on a rollerblade and who is not as innocent as a baby should be: he is and in a mature manner, giving a warning to Asuka, the Manga figurine about the apparent intentions to punishing her of the two religious establishment figures in the left centre of the painting.
I borrowed these two figures from Ingres' painting "Jesus among the doctors", 1862. What caught my eye is that one of them is pointing upwards with his forefinger, a common gesture of stating: God is my witness. By posing on top of a pedestal dressed in her bikini outfit, Asuka, outrages the two religious people not only by her brazen appearance but also because, consciously or not, she is pointing her forefinger downward, a gesture understood by the two fanatic men as a sure sign of blasphemy and profanity.
Two other liberal female figures in this painting are enjoying their time, the one kneeling down I borrowed from Peter Blake's painting The Meeting or Have a Nice Day, Mr. Hockney, the other one is mounting a Vespa scooter.
Finally, on the right side, a young girl stands framed by an arched niche. She appears to be a dispassionate witness of the situation.'
(Mohammed El-Rawas, 2012)