Detail: Ayyam Gallery Beirut is pleased to announce 'Afterimage', a
solo exhibition by Lebanese artist Ginane Makki Bacho from
11 April – 31 May 2013.
'Afterimage' presents a highly personal series of paintings
which Makki Bacho refers to as her ‘memoirs’. Having
trained as a writer before attending art school, narrative
is central to her artistic practice. Working from personal
photos collaged together to create ‘flashes’ of her past
that overlap and merge, the paintings allow the viewer
glimpses into Makki Bacho’s history set against a wider
narrative of the changing face of Lebanon; the viewer
shares in her intimate memories, but also the pain of a
country torn apart.
Through working from photographs, the artist invokes the
language of the personal snapshot, and the universality of
this – the shared experience of attempting to capture a
fleeting moment through a photographic token, or adopting a
conventional pose. At the same time, her muted pastel
palette is evocative of old and faded family albums,
creating a sense of nostalgia within her compositions.
When war broke out in Beirut in 1982, Makki Bacho’s
apartment was completely destroyed by a shell. As she
sifted through the rubble, she collected twisted shrapnel
that she would later use to make sculptures and this
cathartic act became her process for dealing with the
trauma and shock of such an attack. Though working with
two-dimensional media for this new series of works, the
artist is still fascinated with building layers and
textures in order to construct a complex narrative, which
is also informed by her extensive work with printmaking.
One such layered work is 'The Icon' (2012), which presents
a young girl gazing at a photograph of her father while
also seemingly reflected back at the viewer in the same
frame. A vast sea scape in the background suggests a father
gone away to sea, leaving nothing but a photo as a memento.
The painting is based on Makki Bacho’s memory of her father
going to France to pursue his PHD at the Sorbonne, leaving
behind a picture that became her ‘icon’, which she used to
maintain a connection to him.
It is through such works that we are introduced to Makki
Bacho’s method of building a rich story within each
painting, a story which is continued and developed
throughout 'Afterimage'. Taken as a whole, these different
scenes – a girl playing with a hula hoop, a young woman on
the threshold of adolescence, a pregnant woman beaming at
the camera – weave together into a tale of the artist’s
life.