Abdullah Al Saadi: Selected Works

Overview

Alsaadi chooses to travel beyond the walls, beyond the trompe-l'oeil of 'Nature' painting reminiscent of the allegory of Zeuxis and Parrhasius, where birds try to steal painted fruit and curtains act as an allegory of painterly illusion. To traverse nature's terrain on a bicycle represents another type of artist. Again, nothing exceeds his needs, he takes with him only that which caters for his needs during his travels or trips. Then he rushes to collect his rich material "insects and bones" to mould later on in the questioning of art and non-art; the self, and the other; existence and non-existence; the living and the dead.

He paints in a hurry, sketches and portraits, then writes regularly in his diary in a small book. He goes on and when he paints he is close to a primitive man in soul, or to a child; he fixes something with M(l intention to create a detailed painting. His concept of 'fixing a picture' is probably the same one that he used in fixing insects in sardine tins and preserving them, then arranging and distributing them in small bags as if he is signalling to what comes out of the idea as shock or invention, where there is the little grave, full of insects easily portable everywhere. All this is doubtless obvious to us. Abdallah Alsaadi, s a hardworking artist in search for the core of death and what it leaves behind from traces of creatures and ingredients. Actually he does not refuse responsibility, discard or mock it. On the contrary, he rushes out to collect, clean and polish it by adding some chemical substances, countering decay and erosion. There he displays it - in his own way or style - as art. And by doing this, he keeps outside the limits of a traditionally framed painting. He prefers through his silence and meditation to roam outside. In the heart of nature he searches for his substances in abandoned far places. This is the performance style adopted by Abdallah Alsaadi in his latest work. In fact, art does not content itself in painting or sculpture. It exceeds itself and reaches every object surrounding us, whatever path the artist follows to reveal to us in those objects or remains/scraps: how he was able to create a space out of it.