The empty quarter fine art and photography gallery opens a unique exhibition featuring Saudi photographer Reem Al Faisal on November 15, 2015 including her highly regarded Nass series of black and white portraits, and for the first time, the artist includes color photographs.
Nass (It means People in arabic)
Capturing silence with silence, despite the din of the world, People made of blood, flesh and thoughts…, wrapped by oblivion I see them in the streets, markets and cafes, and in the maze of port, carrying their dreams into their eyes… Day after day, their dreams turn to disappointment and frustration and frustration to sadness and sadness to silence, then silence to solitude I see them in the crowd or alone capturing silence with silence
People, my lens (Camera) sought after and chased… crowds or individuals…. stories and tales …senior and junior, women with hidden presence and men who take up all attentions, ignoring my lens sometimes, and giving in to its provocation other times and smile reluctantly
My eyes (camera) do not look for a dazzling sight, but for the innermost …
I do not care what surrounds them whether beauty or ruin… I’m looking for their dreams into the brightness of their eyes; image is the shadow of truth… I don’t have what it takes to make their dreams come true.
All I can do is extracting them from the confused backgrounds of fabrics and inscriptions that surround them and isolate them from their inevitable world and trying to cover their tragedy with few touches that may perhaps illuminate somehow their broken vision to anoint the legacy the years left on these innocent faces…
Views teeming with contradictions depicting the rule where misery is the way for survival and generosity the key for happiness. I can almost assure that they are the ones who are happy and so you will see great virtue in men dressed in rags and hear confused voices full of innocent laughter and you will see all those whose wrinkled brows tell their old age, and see their generosity and dignity, and their sincere smile that I never saw before.
So I tried to break their silence to dive deep down in them and feel the pride they buried inside their need for a living.
Indeed, faith transcended their souls and the expressions of their faces struck me so deeply one can easily understand those people who were stripped of their masks, deprived from wealth, they have been granted conviction they made me smile silently and I captured their silence with silence.
EXHIBITION
Nass
Reem Al Faisal
Currently
The Empty Quarter Jeddah
Old Jeddah – Al Balad – Queens Building
25th Roof floor
Saudi Arabia
[email protected]
+966 55 543 0684
http://www.theemptyquarterjeddah.com
