Nabil Nahas Lebanese, b. 1949
Untitled, 2005
Acrylic on canvas
28 x 22 cm. (11 x 8 5/8 in.)
Copyright The Artist
Further images
Nabil Nahas’s Untitled (2005) is an example of the artist’s celebrated series of biomorphic relief paintings, in which the rhythms and phenomena of the natural world are translated into dazzling...
Nabil Nahas’s Untitled (2005) is an example of the artist’s celebrated series of biomorphic relief paintings, in which the rhythms and phenomena of the natural world are translated into dazzling abstraction. Across a modest scale, the work radiates with an intensity that belies its size, its surface encrusted with layered pigment that conjures the organic vitality of a marine ecosystem.
Throughout his career Nahas has returned time and again to nature as both subject and inspiration. From his early depictions of cedar and palm trees, informed by his childhood in Beirut and Cairo, to his explorations of concentric circles and fractal forms, his art has always been driven by a reverence for the environments that shaped him. The present work belongs to a cycle first conceived in the early 1990s, when the artist encountered a starfish-strewn beach on Long Island, New York. Struck by the uncanny beauty of the scene, he began casting starfish, shells and other shoreline fragments in silicone, creating moulds that could be filled with acrylic. These experimental processes soon gave rise to a distinctive language of relief painting, in which textural accumulations became fields of intense visual vibration.
Central to Nahas’s practice is his manipulation of material. By mixing pumice powder into his paint, he creates a surface that seems to hover between coral reef and pure ground pigment, both geological and painterly in effect. In Untitled the artist deploys a rich chromatic range: ultramarine and turquoise are set in dynamic relationship with passages of gold, lending the composition both marine luminosity and the opulence of Byzantine mosaic. The intricate repetition of forms suggests patterns drawn from Islamic architectural ornament, while their organic irregularity insists upon their natural origins.
The result is a painting that exists at the threshold of abstraction and nature, order and proliferation. With its vibrant colour, tactile relief and hypnotic rhythm, Untitled encapsulates the qualities that make Nahas one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary abstraction, a painter who has transformed the humble starfish into a symbol of endless creative vitality.
Throughout his career Nahas has returned time and again to nature as both subject and inspiration. From his early depictions of cedar and palm trees, informed by his childhood in Beirut and Cairo, to his explorations of concentric circles and fractal forms, his art has always been driven by a reverence for the environments that shaped him. The present work belongs to a cycle first conceived in the early 1990s, when the artist encountered a starfish-strewn beach on Long Island, New York. Struck by the uncanny beauty of the scene, he began casting starfish, shells and other shoreline fragments in silicone, creating moulds that could be filled with acrylic. These experimental processes soon gave rise to a distinctive language of relief painting, in which textural accumulations became fields of intense visual vibration.
Central to Nahas’s practice is his manipulation of material. By mixing pumice powder into his paint, he creates a surface that seems to hover between coral reef and pure ground pigment, both geological and painterly in effect. In Untitled the artist deploys a rich chromatic range: ultramarine and turquoise are set in dynamic relationship with passages of gold, lending the composition both marine luminosity and the opulence of Byzantine mosaic. The intricate repetition of forms suggests patterns drawn from Islamic architectural ornament, while their organic irregularity insists upon their natural origins.
The result is a painting that exists at the threshold of abstraction and nature, order and proliferation. With its vibrant colour, tactile relief and hypnotic rhythm, Untitled encapsulates the qualities that make Nahas one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary abstraction, a painter who has transformed the humble starfish into a symbol of endless creative vitality.