A long relationship The famous Jordanian sculptor Mona Al-Saudi collected stone, hair and painting, as she carved and adored the stone, just as she loves the word, poetry and painting. That is why the Saudi decided to present in her exhibition, which was recently held, in the XVI Gallery in Dubai, a set of paintings that reduce their relationship to color and the word, knowing that the drawings of the Saudi are not far from their sculptures, as we find them loaded with features of stone carving.
The fees she provides are similar to sculptures dealing with fertility, maternity, love, and women, primarily poetry.
The exhibition of the artist, Mona Al-Saudi, carries her vision to embody everything she loves. She tells «Emirates Today»: “All her work comes from a poetic memory.” This is what the recipient seeks upon entering the exhibition. When the word is combined with the graphics, meanings can be touched through color. It is as if we are in the process of creating a color for the poem, as it reconstructs the meaning in a color template, so that it can be reborn with it. In some paintings, the word is combined with the drawings, and it depends on the colors only in other paintings. It uses the introduction of the word in stages and reduces the meaning of symbolic characterization in the other phase, while we find the titles of her works emanating from the poems, including "A Woman and a Bird", which the artist performed in 1972, and " Motherhood of the Earth, "" Invisible Cities, "" Goddess of the Moon, "and" Tree of Life. "
Mona Al-Saudi said: "I work in a somewhat mood, and the gallery is a limited area, and I have exhibited more than once sculptures with drawings, so I decided to present a light exhibition by focusing on the drawings that were not displayed in the past." She added: “These drawings are not the beginnings of sculpture, and there is no relationship between the two. My drawings are not related to sculpting. One may feel that the one who presented these drawings is a sculptor, and that dealing with paper differs from dealing with stone. In paper there is speed in drawing and lightness in The paper, while sculpture is generated from stone according to another process, it can be said that in drawing, the artist can chatter, whereas in sculpture the stone must be traced and its ability to tolerate details, and for this the sculpture is reductive to the final extent.
The Saudi chose to combine painting and poetry in the exhibition, and this is due to her close relationship with drawing and poetry from a young age. She wrote many poems at the age of 17. The Saudi loves poetry, and describes her work as coming from a poetic memory, even in the beginnings she did not practice the transfer of nature in her work The artist, rather, her works carried impressions, as if she was writing poetry with works, and sometimes she was directly inspired by a poem or poet, including the group that was inspired by Mahmoud Darwish's poetry. She drew attention to the fact that the drawings in the exhibition are inspired by the poems of Mahmoud Darwish, and a poem by Adonis bearing the name "Raqeem Petra", and it has clips related to the stone because Petra is a stone city, and she added: “I was stopped by the phrase (every stone is inhabited by the unseen), and I felt that I must work because I feel "The stone is a place to reflect on behind me." In addition to these works, she presented a philosophical poem by the French poet Saint John Pierce, which she read in the seventies, when she was presenting drawings in Chinese ink along with the poems of Onsi Al-Hajj when he was publishing his poems, along with Italo Calvino, and he has a book called "Invisible Cities", It carries forms for cities, including the city that always sings. These imaginative and poetic things that carry extensions give me the reason to paint the poet.
The Saudi memory is associated with a group of poets. She loves Mahmoud Darwish’s relationship with the land and motherhood of the earth, and describes her as the motherhood of Palestine and the land in general, while Adonis poetry has found the philosophical dimension, especially in the long and ancient poems, explaining that they are close friends with her. On Adonis' experience in art, the Saudi pointed out that she was surprised by his artwork and described it as beautiful works, especially that he writes old Arabic poetry and not his poems, and his works are free and beautiful.
Motherhood of the earth means a lot to the Saudi, and for this it presented works inspired directly by poetry in addition to works inspired by motherhood of the earth, indicating that the earth is the first house for humans, and this is why it belittles the wars between countries and the adherence to powers and delusional borders, in addition to the time that individuals live is A very small time in the cosmic time, so there are things that carry the motherhood of the earth and forms in the state of formation. And about her love to highlight the idea of motherhood, she praised the Saudi that it is the idea that gives renewal to life, explaining that when she works she does not submit to her work for any supervision, she does not have any prior decision, but rather follows the depth of her internal feeling without any explanations, and this makes her offer many and varied experiences. In one of her poems, the Saudi mentioned that when a stone loses weight it turns into a poem, and this prompted it to say that poetry is the beginning, a feeling of existence and the world, and that is why its sculptural experience intersects with poetry.
A tribute to Mahmoud Darwish
Actress Mona Al-Saudi signed a book entitled "A Tribute to Mahmoud Darwish", and presented it in cooperation with her daughter Zia Al-Batal, and it carries a collection of Darwish's poems in Arabic and English and their artwork. It is mentioned that the artist was born in Amman in 1945, and she loved art since childhood, and she engraved her name in the record of Arab and international sculpture, through a long journey. Her exhibition was in 1963, before she studied fine arts in Paris.
Saudi loves poetry, and describes her work as coming from poetic memory.
The Saudi memory is associated with a group of poets, such as Mahmoud Darwish and Adonis.