Old Man 2 (2011 - 2012)
Description
Size: 105 x 85 cm; 41.3 x 33.4 in
Medium: Oil on canvas
Signed lower right. Signed and dated on the reverse.
Provenance
Private Collection, Lebanon (acquired directly from the artist).
Location
Beirut, Lebanon
Description
Marwan Sahmarani is a Lebanese artist born in 1970. He gained international recognition in 2010 as one of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize laureates for a monumental multimedia installation. The same year, he was featured in the exhibition Told/Untold/Retold, curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath at Mathaf, Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha.
Sahmarani is known for his expressive use of textures and colours. His compositions that can reach very large formats are deeply impactful and, as Anna Seaman writes, look like “a seemingly abstract formation of thickly-applied oil paints.” His works are, however, rooted in a historical environment of violence. “I want to understand how people can arrive at a point where they attempt to destroy each other. This appetite for destruction spans human history, and our failure to transcend this destructive force constantly haunts me. I try to investigate this failure and to explore the raw emotions at the heart of violence,” Sahmarani says.
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