Shelter
“I don’t see myself as merely an artist, but as an art researcher. Always testing and experimenting to find new ways of expressing myself.”
Born in Bagdad and raised in Kuwait, Fahar is familiar with the reality of life of a society marked by insecurity and homelessness. The search for safety and comfort plays an essential role in the everyday life of people in the Middle-East and has thus become a central theme of his painting. Since 2009, Fahar has been working on “Shelter”, a series of paintings that deals with his roots, but also with a primeval human desire, and has become an integral part of his art. Over the years, the series has thus evolved into an homage to art itself, to the act of painting, which has become his refuge and his home.Since the beginning of the series, his motifs, his flow, and his color palette have developed further in a remarkable way.
While the earlier works included strong compositional references to Baroque painting and the motifs still seemed figurative, the gloomy, melancholic scenarios have become rarer. Always citing the symbolic roof as a key motif, he now primarily takes up the formal questions of abstract expressionism in his action painting. Originating in abstracted figuration, the paintings of Fahar have now become completely abstract.
Besides its formal development, the series also depicts the personal journey of the artist from the processing of content through art to the arrival in art itself. He has found his shelter in art.
