Diana Al-Hadid "Plays the Classics" - Art 21

"Ash in the Trade Winds"

She starts by talking about ambiguity....

    Which In critique I have been simmering on “nuanced ambiguity in successful artwork is commentary on the human condition."

       She says she like stories but is more concerned with being ambiguous in her story telling. Rejecting the specificity, she likes the physical aspect of her work, bending and morphing things. Driven by temperament, and she intervenes things and weaves them while in an altered state through the physicality of her work. She interestingly noted that people bring a lot of connotation to material when they can recognize it, and this is very much something i have been handling in my work, She said “ i want to slow down that process” that immediate connotation, and she does say that its no longer a painting when it comes off the wall, but its an object none the less and that's how people read it.

    She says she feels disconnected from knowing the actual Christian stories behind the references, but steals their compositions and scraps the rest. I do see the architectural quality to her work, but I see it more in the reference images that in the final work, they come across as more drippy and in motion to be considered directly structural to me. I have always enjoyed using projectors and have one of my own, and I can also confidently say I really enjoy that she seems very equal parts painter and sculpture and she also seems to embrace both at the same time.

'Phantom Limb"

Art 21 Artist Bio

    Diana Al-Hadid was born in 1981 in Aleppo, Syria. She was raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and currently lives and works in New York. Al-Hadid’s large-scale sculptures and wall hangings are the outcome of process-based investigations into materials, including fiberglass, polymer, steel, and plaster.

https://art21.org/artist/diana-al-hadid/