Maryam Najd
20 Jan - 12 Feb 2012
MARYAM NAJD
Happy New Year my love
20 January - 12 February, 2012
In her exhibition „Happy New Year my love“ Maryam Najd shows new works that document her continuing interest in the observation of a constantly changing, often chaotic world - a world that is almost manically concerned to preserve its borders and yet simultaneously obsessed with crossing them. In this sense, it is possible to see Maryam Najd’s „Non Existence Flag Project“ as the visualisation and reinterpretation of a somewhat nostalgic, traditional system of symbols (of sovereignty), which ignores nationalisms and seeks to establish a harmonious, borderless union of art. For her series „Flags“, Najd calculated the percentages of all the colours in the world’s state flags, mixed a palette of colours to match this and used it to produce one monochrome painting per country. In this way, she produced an aesthetically pleasing series of paintings, which invite the viewer to take a new look at the world’s states and their symbols. Najd’s latest painting „Happy New Year my love“ reveals the simultaneous use of representation and abstraction that is characteristic of her work. It combines the floral symbols - flowers or leaves -, which are each attributed like national flags to a specific country, in order to produce a cheerful, extremely colourful bouquet: also paying reverence, with twinkle in her eye, to the Dutch master Jan Breughel. Another characteristic of Najd’s work is the typical way in which she masks figurative elements using a thin layer of white paint like a veil, thus temporarily hiding things that would otherwise be immediately recognized.
Maryam Najd is a grantee of the Flemish government, Brussels in the context of our International Studio Programme.
http://www.maryamnajd.com
Happy New Year my love
20 January - 12 February, 2012
In her exhibition „Happy New Year my love“ Maryam Najd shows new works that document her continuing interest in the observation of a constantly changing, often chaotic world - a world that is almost manically concerned to preserve its borders and yet simultaneously obsessed with crossing them. In this sense, it is possible to see Maryam Najd’s „Non Existence Flag Project“ as the visualisation and reinterpretation of a somewhat nostalgic, traditional system of symbols (of sovereignty), which ignores nationalisms and seeks to establish a harmonious, borderless union of art. For her series „Flags“, Najd calculated the percentages of all the colours in the world’s state flags, mixed a palette of colours to match this and used it to produce one monochrome painting per country. In this way, she produced an aesthetically pleasing series of paintings, which invite the viewer to take a new look at the world’s states and their symbols. Najd’s latest painting „Happy New Year my love“ reveals the simultaneous use of representation and abstraction that is characteristic of her work. It combines the floral symbols - flowers or leaves -, which are each attributed like national flags to a specific country, in order to produce a cheerful, extremely colourful bouquet: also paying reverence, with twinkle in her eye, to the Dutch master Jan Breughel. Another characteristic of Najd’s work is the typical way in which she masks figurative elements using a thin layer of white paint like a veil, thus temporarily hiding things that would otherwise be immediately recognized.
Maryam Najd is a grantee of the Flemish government, Brussels in the context of our International Studio Programme.
http://www.maryamnajd.com