Zalfa Halabi Art Gallery is honoured to announce a solo exhibition by Rola Abu Darwish, Foreign Bodies, a body of work that expresses dynamic experience through endless, microscopic play.

The Foreign Bodies series is a collection of observations and experiences, of qualms and queries, communication and connection. Through the intricate use of symbols at the cellular level, and drawing on patterns – both repetitive and random – of splashes, dashes, and dots, signature motifs and symbols of hers. The artist followed the, “itch to do something,” and graduated with a Masters in Fine Arts from the Lebanese University in 2019. Foreign Bodies stems from her desire to create works that enable the viewer to experience and observe simultaneously; whether it’s a space, a place, or a feeling.

The artist worked on this series in 2022, but, as she says, “there is always a starting point, sometimes from real life, sometimes very abstract… It comes from an urge in me… Sometimes things come up and you question it and take it forward.” It is a reaction up to the microscopic and cellular level. Abu Darwish’s work features characters playing endlessly in their own world, illustrating forces that are vivid and dynamic. They communicate, comment on, and criticize each other, existing in overlapping and questionable spaces. Existing within their own engulfing universe that is based on and evokes feeling.

Previous works playfully depicted her signature motifs and symbols in a palette strictly composed of blacks, whites, and reds. Her body of work has not seen colour to this extent. “I started using colors because I wanted an extra element in my paintings, which was space… It’s exploration.” It is an exploration of intricate layers, a study on shape and form, while simultaneously creating a formless space. “I like this paradox… that things are not direct.”

Courtesy of Zalfa Halabi Art Gallery

Feature: Rola Abu Darwish, In my head, 2022. Acrylic on canvas, 1.90 x 1.50 m. Courtesy of Zalfa Halabi Art Gallery