Lebanese artist Chafa Ghaddar has brought a fresh perspective to the art of the fresco in her latest exhibition, Beneath Latent Skies, at the Dubai International Financial Centre. The exhibition, which runs until April 27, draws on Ghaddar’s long-standing research and contemporary interpretation of this form of wall painting.
To create the works for the exhibition, Ghaddar delved into the medium at her parents’ home in South Lebanon, where she was wounded during the civil war in the late ’80s. Since returning, her parents have refurbished the ancestral home to make it livable, but the construction remains weakened and the walls subject to humidity, which peels away every layer of paint.
Chafa Ghaddar’s exhibition showcases more than 40 new artworks that draw from her muscle memory of frescoes. The works are stripped off from the wall and presented on Indian cotton paper, and wood canvases with a palette of fleshy tones and fabric before each takes on a life of its own.
The investigation of the different nuances of the sky in her canvases, the cracks in the framed mix-media artworks that share the exhibition title, and the irregularities, and paintings of self in her works on wood in this exhibition continue to be a prominent departure from the classical definition of fresco and a stark reminder of its more fragile existence and are informed by Ghaddar’s subconscious manifestations and experiences.
Ghaddar’s presentation of the different hues of the sky and nature in this exhibition follows from a study that she began in Beirut in 2018, while some of the other works are a clear return to the bodily figuration, intimacy, and self-portraits, which goes back to her practice in 2015.
In her work “Skin,” a peachy-hue, site-specific installation of fabric hangs on a metallic structure and rolls in a way that is akin to a relaxed body. The color scheme in the paintings, with pink, off-white, and beige hues, depicts her own unease and emotions of the past three years of turmoil that the world and her country have seen.
“If you think about the last three years, the Covid lockdown, the Beirut blast, and the ongoing financial crisis, it has naturally impacted our psyche and our bodies differently and on a very personal level,” she says.
Beneath Latent Skies by Chafa Ghaddar is evidence of the maturity that she has witnessed in her practice since first being introduced to the concept of fresco while assisting industrial painters in preparing and plastering walls and creating motifs and decorative paintings on it after classes at the Academie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts in Beirut, where she graduated in 2009.
With her latest exhibition, Ghaddar has given a fresh take on frescoes and has showcased her adaptation of the technique since 2014. Beneath Latent Skies showcases a comprehensive look at her practice, while leaning on some ideas more than others.