My fellow peer and friend Mustafa Shaheen took a breath of relief today as we walked out of Capastrano hall, where he gave his artist lecture on his current exhibition in the Union gallery titled
And Bring to Bloom the Flowers. My friend Mustafa has been working exhaustingly hard this past year to get this show up and running for us this Winter of 2016. The paintings in the show are well composed, striking in detail, and energetic in color. I highly recommend anyone to see this show.
From watching my friend work closely on this body of work, to hear him speak about it interested me. I have become so attuned, and perhaps immune, to the portraits because I am so familiar with them- being his studio mate. Being at his lecture was insightful because I gained some more detailed information on how he arrived at his current series. I enjoyed how he laid out his lecture like a narrative, telling a story of how he has grown throughout his undergraduate career. Mustafa discussed how he was interested in portraiture and how as he progressed through his undergrad, he could apply deeper content to such a traditional concept of painting the human face. He discussed with the audience how his interest in empathy through daily mundane actions connect us all as fellow humans. He then lead to his deeper interest, depicted in his current exhibition, of revealing our connections with the world around us through physical objects. For instance, in the portrait (of myself)
And Then She Cut Her Hair, I decided to wear my Father's jade ring around my neck. My Father had grown ill over the past year, and I wanted to show my connection to him when Mustafa painted my portrait. I was also wanting to show the connection to my heritage, because I am Chinese and jade has a deep history in Chinese culture. Having decided to wear these when Mustafa took photo references of me, I knew that he could accomplish the overall purpose of producing work depicting that connection. He is a very capable and hard working individual who cares deeply about his work and about the art world.
The reception for
And Bring to Bloom the Flowers was also very successful and had a large turn out of people. I immensely enjoyed the conversation and community among the guests that arrived to support Mustafa.
You can view the exhibition in the Union Gallery located of the second floor of the university union until February 18.
You can visit Mustafa's website at www.mshaheen.com.
His instagram username mustafashaheen.
My fellow peer and friend Mustafa Shaheen took a breath of relief today as we walked out of Capastrano hall, where he gave his artist lecture on his current exhibition in the Union gallery titled And Bring to Bloom the Flowers. My friend Mustafa has been working exhaustingly hard this past year to get this show up and running for us this Winter of 2016. The paintings in the show are well composed, striking in detail, and energetic in color. I highly recommend anyone to see this show.
Hello Caiti,
ReplyDeleteThis is Jonathan McGee from ART 112. It is interesting to witness your attention to portraiture in writing, especially after seeing the evolution of your work in advanced drawing. I appreciate the personal connection that you describe to your portrait, as well as the generally personal approach to the entire post. However, I do wish that you had mentioned a few more details, or went into more depth about certain aspects of the content. Comments about the artist's attention to the way that "empathy through daily mundane actions connect us all" are very interesting, and left at that, these remarks seem to be a tease. I wish you could have broken-down an example or two to deeply dive into this psychology, or perhaps give your own theories for why these things interest the artist. Perhaps that is asking too much, but at the very least, it would have been nice to see a breakdown of the mechanism of how, and by what means, the artist demonstrates his interest in this subject matter. I think you begin to do this in your discussion of the artist's rendering of you, however, that conversation seems to be more a record of your intentions as a subject instead of an analysis of the artist's hand in creating content. Nonetheless, I am grateful for the presentation of an entertaining and concise post, delightfully free of technical errors. (Or at least to my eye!) I thank you for a worthwhile read.
Hi Jonathan! Thanks for the comment. I do have an example of a work, and my personal relationship with the artist has left me with a bit more insight that others might not know about. There is a specific work in mind that I could use that would be a good example of a "daily mundane action" which interested Mustafa in some of his late 2014 works. I remember when he started to paint a portrait of his friend Omar shaving his face. This portrait continues to be one of my favorites that he has ever done. The story behind this painting is that his friend would always call him or text him when he was in the restroom! Mustafa started to think about these actions that happen in the restroom- and so then used him as a model and thought about what daily mundane thing could connect them as people and as friends. We don't think too often about how we humans share in so many similar daily activities and how uninteresting they can become. I found that portrait to be very striking and interesting even though it is as simple as a man shaving his face! I hope that adds a little more insight to what Mustafa had in mind while painting those. I would definitely ask him in person if you run into him! He is always happy to talk to people about the work! Thanks Jonathan!
DeleteNice job, Caiti. Will you get to keep the portrait of you? Your painting is notably different from Mustafa's. Do you two discuss the difference in your painting processes and attitudes?
ReplyDeleteI find it so interesting to talk to Mustafa about art. Our work IS different from each other's and we always comment about how different our studios look and how we work. I can admit I work in chaos, thus my work reflects haha! Mustafa is one of the cleanest artists I know- barely ever gets paint on him or on his clothes- and I can say that the neat-ness and preciseness of this work reflects as well!
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