painting
- Museum number
- 2016,6048.1
- Title
- Object: Untitled
- Description
-
Series of figures painted in black with touches of blue. Mixed media on rice paper,2013.
- Production date
- 2012
- Dimensions
-
Height: 70 centimetres
-
Width: 140 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Yazigi is a sculptor and a painter and studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Damascus University, graduating in 1988. Out of clay and bronze or drawing on delicate rice paper, he creates wide-eyed figures, sometimes part-human, contorted and without gender, which seem to hark back to an ancient time. The works emphasise the face; it is as though the body is a mere extension of it. These are people he sees every day, and in describing these figures he comments: ‘It wasn’t as much art naif as a little childlike, in that my figures had the appearance of a child. There was innocence, for sure. There was always someone smiling, someone with a big head and a smaller body, the idea of people who are beautiful but still not aware, who did not grow up correctly. They did not grow up correctly because circumstances did not allow them to do so.’ Yazigi lives in Damascus. His studio is in the old city, and despite the effect of the war in Syria on his practice, Yazigi points to the positives, which include Syria’s wonderful light and the fact that, above all, the country is still his home. ‘What I paint – a relief that I am making or a sculpture – it’s a part of my daily life. I go down to the studio every day and there I paint and I sculpt.’ (Porter et al Reflections, p. 48)
(Photo credit: Wafai Naily)
- Location
- On display (G90)
- Exhibition history
-
British Museum, G34, Living Histories (2017 2 Jun - 16 Oct)
British Museum, Room 90, Reflections contemporary art of the Middle East and North Africa until 15th August 2021.
- Acquisition date
- 2016
- Department
- Middle East
- Registration number
- 2016,6048.1
