Manal

Coinciding with the debut of Anas's show at Wadi Finan Art Gallery in Amman, Artscoops is launching an online preview of the show.

Running from the 13th up until the 25th of May, 2017, Wadi Finan Gallery is pleased to announce "Manal", an exhibition by Syrian artist Anas Albraehe (b. 1991).

As a multidisciplinary practitioner, Albraehe’s recent work explores the psychology of color and the glance of the other through combining art and psychology, two fields of his own expertise.

In this collection of paintings, Albraehe explores his own self as portrayed by the different faces of Manal, a long-term neighbor of his with an outsider status who was born with Down-syndrome. Albraehe decided to paint Manal following an encounter where he noticed her through his window as she was hiding in a field, and then a spontaneous act of response erupted a collaborative act of creativity. By exploring her facial features, body movement and psyche, Anas Albraehe incorporates the unique existence of Manal to mirror his own existence, creating a subjective representation of otherness.

Working as both a muse and a mirror, Manal thus plays the role of a collaborator more than a mere art subject, influencing the artist's creative practice, and through her own existence, transforms his own act of seeing; the nature of looking at the world and at the self, seeking clarity rather than distortion.