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Lot Essay
"Here is a face. Behold it. Gaze at its lineaments and you shall see its lines as if they were lanterns descending towards the depths, and as if they were reposing on the shoulder of your memory."
(Adonis, Paris 1998).
Christie's is delighted to offer these two spectacular watercolour works from the collection of Dr. Issa Alauneh, the artist's close friend, patron and supporter. One of the most prominent Modernist artists of Syria and currently residing in Germany, Marwan was instrumental in internationalising Arab Contemporary art and many attribute to him that Europe began to register the existence of a Syrian Contemporary
art movement in a Post-Modern context.
In Landschaft Marionette, one of the few themes the artist has explored in the last six decades, Marwan develops on his series of the same name that reflect the artist's intent to provide an endless variety of emotions and an all-encompassing reflection of the human soul.
By choosing the lifeless symbol of a marionette, he manages to avoid the intimacy afforded by the use of a living model. In doing so, he provides the viewer an important step towards an understanding of his work and inner psyche yet simultaneously metaphorically refers to his own inner emptiness, reflection and torment.
The close up of the doll's face, so abstract yet so colourful in its complex and delicate layering of translucent brushstrokes, harks back to the Facial Landscape series of the 1960s where landscapes and faces merged into one. In bringing these two seemingly different things together, the faces in themselves become landscapes of their own, landscapes of the soul and mind.
(Adonis, Paris 1998).
Christie's is delighted to offer these two spectacular watercolour works from the collection of Dr. Issa Alauneh, the artist's close friend, patron and supporter. One of the most prominent Modernist artists of Syria and currently residing in Germany, Marwan was instrumental in internationalising Arab Contemporary art and many attribute to him that Europe began to register the existence of a Syrian Contemporary
art movement in a Post-Modern context.
In Landschaft Marionette, one of the few themes the artist has explored in the last six decades, Marwan develops on his series of the same name that reflect the artist's intent to provide an endless variety of emotions and an all-encompassing reflection of the human soul.
By choosing the lifeless symbol of a marionette, he manages to avoid the intimacy afforded by the use of a living model. In doing so, he provides the viewer an important step towards an understanding of his work and inner psyche yet simultaneously metaphorically refers to his own inner emptiness, reflection and torment.
The close up of the doll's face, so abstract yet so colourful in its complex and delicate layering of translucent brushstrokes, harks back to the Facial Landscape series of the 1960s where landscapes and faces merged into one. In bringing these two seemingly different things together, the faces in themselves become landscapes of their own, landscapes of the soul and mind.