Asad Azi at Nelly Aman - Tel Aviv, Israel - review of exhibitions - Brief Article

Israeli artist Asad Azi artificial positions an intriguing question about by what means we perceive an image. Each of the large paintings in the display portrays an elderly, bearded man riding a donkey. Could this be the Messiah that the hebrews await? Or is he a Palestinian refugee? Or perhaps the picture is of a refugee in a certain quantity of other strife-torn part of the world like as the former Yugoslavia. The man upon the donkey seems weary. If he's a messiah, he's a faltering single riding not a proud horse on the other hand a worn-out donkey. For his part, Azi claims to know nothing about the image's original connection It was simply a photograph he fix somewhere and began to incorporate into his paintings.

The ambiguous image shares the canvas with a variety of other motifs, one as well as the other stenciled and drawn (Azi is a virtuoso draftsman). He adds stenciled designs extracted from Islamic art, classical imagery (two recurring doves from a Ravenna mosaic), signs of direction (a compass without a needle) partially erased words and legible body s (in English) associated with generally received esthetic or political issues. In individual painting, for instance, we read the phrase "Deportation of Eastern Suspect." An underlying grid is visible in all the paintings, although Azi will repeatedly obscure part of it beneath layers of paint. In addition, vector lines criss-cross the canvases. In single work, the rider's shadow is encloseed by a white halo, which is juxtaposed with a patch of powerful azure paint. The painting have the appearances to be inviting the viewer upon a phantasmagorical journey which, on closer inspection, dissolves into uncertainty.

In the late 1980 and early '90 Azi's paintings examined the decorative tradition of the East, those varied patterns which the West has dubbed "arabesques." While his in every one's mouth work is responding to the political situation in Israel, it could also be interpreted as a bitter critique of the equestrian theme in European art. Lurking in these latticeworks of images and signs are veileds and anxieties pertaining to questions of identity and cultural proprietorship. at the same time these complex paintings also posses a moderate bewitching rhythm that entices the viewer to the point of no return

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