Passerelles
Description
Executed in: 2007
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 81 x 100 cm (87.8 x 107 cm with frame)
Signed on the front lower left "N. Saikali"
Provenance
Private Collection, Lebanon
Location
Beirut, Lebanon
Description
A pioneer of kinetic art in Lebanon, Saikali possesses a natural talent for creating what appears to be painted symphonies on canvas. While painting, her entire body, akin to a dancer, engages in the process. Rhythmic motions translated into strokes of colour emanate from the movement of her arms and torso, resulting in a captivating blend of spontaneity and control.
She says: “Too many people theorise and politicise about one’s choice of colours in painting. This is not what I put forward in my works. After having focused my attention on the four elements mentioned in Genesis: Earth- Fire- Water- Air, I now feel like expressing freely my joy to be alive and at peace.”
Her works are housed in prestigious collections such as the National Fund of Contemporary Art in Paris, The Royal Institute Galleries in London, The Chase Manhattan Bank in New York, and the Sursock Collection in Beirut. She has also been prominently featured in exhibitions like “The Memory Sews Together Events That Hadn’t Previously Met” at the Sharjah Art Museum (2020) and “Manifesto of Fragility: Beirut and The Golden Sixties” at Berlin’s Gropius Bau, the Lyon Biennial, and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art (2022). Most recently, she was highlighted in “Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-1970” at London's Whitechapel Gallery (2023).
The works of art which are subject to artist resale royalty rights ('droit de suite') are marked with an * in the description of the work of art. The amount of the royalties is calculated using a sliding scale of percentages of the Hammer Price.