Monday 7 March 2011

Sinan Hussein - in Kuwait



Sinan Hussein, the dreamer who escapes the ugly world through his paintings, has more than 20 of his works on show at the Boushahri gallery in Kuwait until the 11th of march 2011.
One of his works, "the wedding couple" was sold at the JAMM auction of february 2011 in Kuwait.
An Iraqi artist, he has been around in Kuwait for a while, after a time in Jordan and previously in Baghdad.
As much as he considers his time in the faculty of art at the University of Baghdad as being useless and how he believes his teachers needed training and revamping, Sinan shows a mastery of the basics: color, composition, texture, subject, research, point of view... And that must have been acquired quite early in his training.

Although he has exhibited more abstract work previously, this particular show is about a world of spirits, without arms, sometimes without ears, eyes or mouth. His spirits are to scream out the lack of humanity in the human world of today; yet their screaming is done in the softest toned way, in a sense of peace, playfulness and lightness.
His spirits vagabond from a closer human figure barely touching the ground to a bubble of dream in the dream. Their side twisted head seem to show a surprise or disbelief in what they see. Some have halos around their heads maybe to relate to other iconic figures in the world of art. One of his works is entitled: My Jocanda, as if he pays a tribute to past masters. The space on the canvas that surrounds the spirits are worked intensely from color to texture to elements as if the spirits needed the best of care and profound assistance and support.

Sinan sees that they contain the humanity that he cannot find elsewhere. He could be a medium through which they express their agony: a way to remind all of his fellow humans to reconsider their own lost humanity.
He paints a world trapped in canvases and hardly accessible from the real world. He might be labeled as a caricature / light figures / rosy world - artist. It needs an in depth look at his figures and discern the pain through the lightness, as a refined process for expression far from those abrupt, loud noises we got used to in the arab world of art.


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