Paul Guiragossian

 

 Paul Guiragossian (1926 –1993) was an Armenian Lebanese painter.
"Art is greater than me, greater than any artist. I will remain an apprentice until the end. Art is our oxygen, it keeps us conscious, and without it we are insignificant. It's the crossroad of all disciplines, of all sciences. Like a sun it illuminates the past, the present and the future. It preserves our humanity, it is so much more important that man is hardly a rough draft. Our problem is that we don't live up to our humanity'. (Paul Guiragossian). A trajectory of Paul Guiragossian's oeuvre conveys an evolution of an abstract practice that originated in figurative portraiture. He is of Armenian origin, born in Jerusalem and lived in Lebanon. Undoubtedly his background has highly influenced a body of work that not only responds and is limited to the region's historical context but one that engages with the postmodern occupation with notions of identity, and 'the other'. In Madonna and Child (lot 13) dated circa early 1960s, Guiragossian draws from a palette of warm hues of red often associated with religious iconography. The main figure appears to be flat against the surface whilst tablets of religious narratives frame Mary. We begin to witness the emergence of thick brushstrokes- a style that defines Guiragossian's later works. Additionally, the context in which this work was executed is significant in gaining insight to Guiragossian's earlier practice. The Middle East was in upheaval, the Arabs were defeated in the 1956 war with Israel, and the Armenian community was vulnerable to constant persecution. Guiragossian was granted a scholarship and travelled to Florence and Paris to pursue his studies in painting. He was abandoned by his mother from an early age, thus possibly explaining the ubiquity of the female figure in his works. It may be suggested that this work reveals the artist's personal struggle and marks a shift from a more traditional style towards the later abstract work that is manifested in vibrant and luminous colours. Nevertheless, it certifies and reasserts Guiragossian's mastering of figurative technique and his proficiency as an artist. In lot 14 dated circa 1968-1972, Guiragossian employed thick brushstrokes in a muted brown palette to depict a laborer who appears to be kneeling on the ground with his head resting on his arms. The figure's posture suggests melancholy, fatigue and hardship. By observing and painting the everyday life, he sought to express the human condition in its most difficult and most wonderful state. He called himself "the artist of the people", always acknowledging himself as one of them, therefore accepting that this was also his own condition. Guiragossian creates a certain intimacy and understanding between himself and his character in lot 14. This painting further resonates traditional drawings of the labour workers executed by European painters in the 19th century. Guiragossian arrives at his later works of elongated abstract vertical slim figures in the late 1970s. Vertical figures are manifested through the use of thick brushstrokes. The artist often used multiple layers of paint to create a thick opaque texture on the surface offering multiple depths throughout. Additionally in this period, his palette expanded to vibrant and luminious colours intrinsic to a Mediterranean landscape of sea, mountain and sun. 'The colors of the sun and the rainbow', he said, 'belonged to us in the Orient, it's from here where the sun rises and it's from here where it all begins'. However, the 1970s had witnessed the cusp of a Lebanese Civil War, raging throughout the 1980s, yet the brightness of his colours were also a symbol of giving hope to his people in the Middle East during these decades of war. Guiragossian's abstract figures resonate with Jackson Pollock splurges of expressionist dismay or even recalls Barnet Newman's vertical zips conveyed in Adam and Eve. In Guiragossian's work there is nonetheless an undertone of positivity, a deliberate upward movement that is drenched in a vibrancy that is both static and in motion, possibly also evoking Alberto Giacometti's existentialist bronze sculptures that effect a perspective of distance. The elongated figures in Nocturne  stand with their heads slightly bowed, possibly suggesting a sense of mourning or resignation."(christies.com)

 

Rafa al-Nasiri - Artworks

"Rafa Nasiri (also al Nasiri) 1940-2013, painter and print maker, was born in Tikrit, a city besides the Tigris 180 km north of Baghdad. Studied art at the Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad; was granted a scholarship to enhance his academic studies in Beijing, China, to be the first Iraqi artist specialized in graphic art. He was later granted another scholarship to Portugal. To promote the art of printmaking in Iraq, he established a special department in the Institute of Fine arts, Baghdad, and later, in 1987, a private graphic studio in Baghdad. Spent 25 years of his life teaching art in the Institute of Fine Arts Baghdad 1964-1989, while freely practicing painting and printmaking. In the after math of the second Gulf war 1991, he moved to Amman, Jordan to teach art until 1997 when he moved to Bahrain University. In 2003 he settle back in Amman, Jordan as a full time artist.
Considered as one of the leading modern innovators in Iraq and the Arab world, Rafa Nasiri's art works along his career life was able to extend wider borders and take place in world museums."(rafanasiri.com)” Light to him is simply a quality that reveals itself in color, it is quality by itself that goes beyond the things; it is the water that nourishes the work while moving through its veins to elevate the scene into a different levels of existence.”
Rafa Al-Nasiri was born in 1940 in Tekrit, and being educated in China, he adopted what the chinese put it as; working like nature rather than simply imitate it.Nasiri lives within his scene, believing that actual involvement is the shortest route to the truth. Thus he starts from a chaotic point, and follow the traces of form in the formless, in an attempt to create his own order within a world of total disorder.
Nasiri’s painting reveals an inexhaustible source of variations centering around a main subject, the desert. and in his late sixties, he found himself attracted to arabic calligraphy as a distinctive composite element."(ghaliyah.wordpress.com)

Manabu Mabe - Abstract Paintings

Manabu Mabe (1924 –1997) was a Japanese-Brazilian painter. Mabe worked as a vendor of hand-painted ties in São Paulo before becoming a famous artist.In the late 1950s, Mabe won the top award in São Paulo's Contemporary Art Salon, the top award as Brazil's best painter in the São Paulo Bienal, and the top honors for artists under 35 at Paris's first biennial.On January 30, 1979, after an exhibition in Tokyo, 53 of his paintings were on board a Varig cargo Boeing 707-323C en route from Tokyo - Narita to Rio de Janeiro-Galeão via Los Angeles. The aircraft went missing over the Pacific Ocean some 30 minutes (200 km ENE) from Tokyo. The cause is unknown since the wreck was never found. The paintings were lost.Wikipedia

Hillary Lusanji - Arts Sanjay

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Henry Munyaradzi - African Sculpture

"Known simply as “Henry” Henry Munyaradzi is the poet laureate of Zimbabwe Sculpture. He was born in Guruve, the North ofZimbabwe,in 1931 and began sculpting after meeting Tom Blomefield at Tengenenge is 1967. The essence of Henry’s work came from the shape of the stone itself, from which Henry drew inspiration and imagination. His work is “characterized by intersecting, flat rectangular shapes, circular forms, cones, spheres, and cylinders, all harmoniously related” (Stone Sculpture from Zimbabwe, Hayden Galleries). Henry achieved remarkable success internationally with one man and group exhibitions all over the world. Entirely self-taught his skill has amazed artists and art lovers the world over. Henry died in 1998.Henry Munyaradzi’s background, like his life and work, is as deceptively simple as it is remarkable. His father, a spirit medium, left the family when Henry was very young and from this point on, Henry’s childhood and upbringing was typical of rural Zimbabwe at the time – herding cattle and hunting game with dogs, spears and bows and arrows. He did not go to school and to this day speaks and understands very little English. He eventually worked in various ways with the natural land and industry around him – first as a village blacksmith and later as a carpenter and tobacco grader.However, this similarity with the lives of his peers, ended in 1967 when, out of work, he stumbled across the Tengenege Sculptors’ Community set up by Tom Blomefield. Ignoring the large powerful work by Bernard Matemera and Josiah Manzi, he began to sculpt, preferring to work alone and from the beginning with individual strength and powerfully original imagery. As a result he quickly established himself as the leading artist of the community, but left to work alone in 1975.His work began to be included in exhibitions early on in his career – his first exhibition at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, for example, was in 1968. Since that time he has been exhibited both in group and individual shows worldwide and the striking linear images in his sculpture make it some of the most internationally popular of the Zimbabwean artists. Following a very successful one-man exhibition in London in 1984, he was able to purchase his own farm, where he still works, gaining inspiration from the rural surroundings.The strength of his work lies in the purity of form – technique and imagery are honed down to pinpoint the essence of his subject in the simplest of terms. The confident lines and clear-cut geometric incisions have often been compared to Klee (an artist of whom Munyaradzi will never have heard) – but these symbols and his love for a finished product of great beauty and calm have been present in his work from the very beginning. His subject matter is taken from the natural world around him and only the intimate knowledge of this world can produce such minimal, but precise, expression. Being entirely self-taught his work blends the simplicity of the primitive with stylised sophistication. He greatly respects the stone he uses and is often inspired by the original shape. It is an intense relationship with the material as he works spontaneously, neither drawing nor measuring. Despite its apparent simplicity the work cannot be reproduced, and he constantly works to express in new ways his themes of contemplation and spirit in his relationship the natural world and with his personal Apostolic faith. Contemplation of stories in the Bible provides Munyaradzi with the powerful imagery of supplication, friendship, family ties and the security of paternal protection."(zimsculpt.com)