Chafa Ghaddar showcases new Fresco works in her solo show Cacti in a daydream at Galerie Tanit, hors-les-murs, a space in Starco that is open to bring interesting interventions by its artists.
Cobalt blue is on my mind.
This desire to paint and spend time with colour is becoming more and more voracious.
When did I need colour that much?
When did I miss feeling that ecstatic?
Painting is magical, tricky and revealing.
Painting with frescoes is even euphoric.
Frescoes are unashamed.
In cacti I bloomed.
A sweet celebration of resilience and daydreaming.
I retained my spine and my waters.
Thick skin and dissolving soul.
I kept fantasizing.
I kept growing.
Fresco matures twice. In its first stage, it is a work of construction; surfaces are initiated, visuals are painted, the artist is active and the medium becomes solid. In its second stage, the work manifests itself through its own degradation; the decay of the skin, the absence of the artist and the resistance of what remains.
“Through frescoes I explore the manifestation of time on surfaces. Historical gesture appears in conversation with the present. Traces are evoked or retained, then investigated. Temporalities clash.
I explore the paradox of a medium that can be timeless and vulnerable at once. I combine it with other techniques, particularly to process the idea of trace and fragmentation of time and space. I contest its immaculate historicity to suggest new boundaries and territories relate to the sensuality of its surfaces that encapsulate every gesture and every error. I see it as a living material, constantly subject to growth.”
“Fresco allows me to pierce an ecosystem of consistencies and paradoxes and make them mine.”
Cacti in a daydream is on view until the 18th of September