Along with canvases, brushes, and tubes of paint, other tools invade Farah Attasi’s studio: art history books, architectural magazines, exhibition catalogues. On her work table, dozens of cut-out images are painstakingly organized, classified and annotated in preparation for pictures to come. Starting out from a photograph to arrive at a painting is the first stage of Farah Atassi’s work. The artist undertakes lengthy research which often leads her in the footsteps of the European avant-gardes of the early decades of the 20th century. Amid this profusion of photographs on the artist’s desk, we can recognize here and there the grey and black motifs of Rec Room (2012), the brown and pink floor tiles of Cloakroom (2011), the meticulously painted wooden toys scattered over the tiled floors of Playroom (2012) and Workshop (2011), Workshop II (2012) and Workshop III (2012), and the herringbone motifs of Tabou (2013). By plunging into and drawing from the history of architecture, painting and design. Farah Atassi focuses on selecting images which will enable her to construct her interiors, because what is involved here is a construction game, no less. Pencilled lines to place the objects which will then haunt the pictures, then a precise gridding using adhesive to tape to ensure that the motifs are systematized—motifs which she will not remove until the very end, not without leaving one or two adhesive marks. It is now time to paint. Since 2005, Farah Atassi has been painting large format
works which depict interiors. Damp walls, uninhabited areas, a few rickety pieces of furniture, floor tiling blackened with dirt, a dilapidated
décor, a few signs of some past human presence. An endgame atmosphere, threatened by ruin. [Marjolaine Lévy, extraits]
Farah Atassi is born in 1981 in Brussels. She lives and works in Paris. She is represented by galerie Xippas and galerie Michel Rein Bruxelles. Public collections : Mac/val, Centre Pompidou, Fnac, musée de Dole.
Published with galerie Xippas, galerie Michel Rein, Bruxelles, école municipale des beaux-arts/galerie Édouard Manet, Gennevilliers, Le Portique espace d’art contemporain, Le Havre, le Grand Café, centre d’art contemporain, Saint-Nazaire, Musée régional d’art contemporain Languedoc-Roussillon, Sérignan and with the support of Centre national des arts plastiques, aide au premier catalogue.
Authors : Barry Schwabsky, Marjolaine Lévy.
Technical detail
: 24 x 32 cm, 144 pages, softback.
Languages : French, English.
Published in January 2015.
Isbn : 978-2-35864-063-3.
Public price : 28€
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