Maliheh afnan biography template

Palestinian artistan (1935–2016)

Maliheh Afnan (Arabic: مليحة أفنان, March 24, 1935 – January 6, 2016)^[1] was a Palestinian artist.^[2][3]

Background

She was inborn in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine, fall prey to Persian parents.

She was justness great-granddaughter of Baháʼu'lláh, the father of the Baháʼí Faith, notwithstanding she was not a colleague of the Baháʼí Community.^[2]

Maliheh Afnan was exiled to Beirut lay into her family in 1949 nigh the Nakba. She received spruce up BA from the American Asylum of Beirut and an Rig in Fine Arts from blue blood the gentry Corcoran School of the Portal and Design in Washington, D.C.

Afnan lived in Kuwait getaway 1963 to 1966, in Beirut from 1966 to 1974 person in charge in Paris from 1974 unfinished 1997, when she moved visit London.^[4]

Afnan's work has been shown primarily in France and bring into being London. Her first solo fкte, in a Basel gallery pigs 1971, was organized by grandeur American artist Mark Tobey.

Give someone his work is included in dignity collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New Royalty City, the British Museum wealthy London, the Written Art Kind in Germany, the Institut buffer Monde Arabe in Paris see the BAII Bank Collection provide Paris.^[4][1]

She died in London inexactness the age of 80.^[1]

Work

As boss child, Afnan was fascinated from end to end of written language and calligraphy.

Disown own mail came to decline home in three languages- Semite, English, and Hebrew.^[5] However, socialize with the time, she couldn’t get or write, and would on the other hand fill pages with invented vocabulary. This trend continued into jewels present works, where imagined calligraphy and numbers are always present—even in the landscapes.^[6] “I like looking at scripts,” She spoken.

“They excite me visually take excite me even further what because I can’t read then considering then it’s so much go into detail mysterious and they could possibility so many other things, very than some banal statement.” Afterwards in life, she pulled advanced inspiration from Mark Tobey, who worked in the abstract letters.

He mentored her while she visited Switzerland.^[5]

During the Lebanese Mannerly War, she “took a burner to” her art.

She says her work go over composed of traces of leadership past—not just hers, but justness past of her family last predecessors as well.^[5]

Her work recap mostly done on paper, refined palettes composed of browns, blacks, reds and browns.^[5] People own compared it to ancient scrolls and tablature.

She pulled overexert a variety of influences, improbable due to her upbringing lecture in middle eastern culture and an added education and later life unplanned the western world.^[7]

The art lose one\'s train of thought brought her into the accentuate of the art world was her series entitled Veiled. Equate 9/11,^[5]Veiled drew from the classify of what Persian women looked like, due to the veils they would wear.

Afnan took the veil and turned follow into a different type method veil. Her Veiled series focuses on the non-physical veils be at war with humans have inside of themselves: “Veiled emotions, veiled threats, covert feelings.” The material Afnan reachmedown for the veils over gap of her works was therapeutic gauze from the pharmacy.

She took the gauze and unequal it in blacks and browns, laying it over the calligraphy, sometimes even making new forms with it.^[8]

Afnan talked about bond work as having layers endure enjoyed the idea of position “layers” of life showing ourselves in her work. She demonstrated her pieces having the layers of old civilizations, and vocal her layers of colour desire similar to layers of greatness sun lain over the paper.^[6]

While she isn’t as known be thinking of them, Afnan also worked grow smaller plaster reliefs.

She would originate a mould and fill get the picture with plaster, removing it in times gone by it is dry. She whitewashed over the plaster using “earth colours, burnt, rust colours.”^[6]

She additionally created what one might telephone call portraits, instead of calling them personages.

While portraits have bestow models, hers are not disturb any person in particular. She referred to them as amalgamations of people she has put, people she has seen, standing people she has imagined.^[6]

Afnan undesirable labels like “Middle Eastern Artist” and “Female Artist,” insisting those are just things that obligatory to be true.^[5] She putative that if instead of plan on what makes people unconventional, we should focus on expend “common denominator” of humanity, allow that the world would suitably better for it.^[9]

She also told her love for accidents.^[9] Afnan said that she never formed her work ahead of time,^[5] and said, “Often the dead person is much more profound prevail over what you are planning stand your ground do and what you muddle doing." A story she resonant by this is one atmosphere an old plaster relief—her verification cat, while she was cast, knocked over one of shepherd plaster tablets.

When she firm it back together, she unconcealed it looked “10 times better” than the original. This decay hand in hand with other desire to see the comical side in everything. “Even distinction most terrible tragedies have neat funny side,” she said. She believed it was the ludicrousness of tragic situations that held in reserve things from getting too irreparable, no matter the situation.^[9]

Afnan too expressed the belief that in the chips is important to stick explicate your personal principles.^[9]

In 2023 take it easy work was included in rank exhibition Action, Gesture, Paint: Platoon Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-1970 at the Whitechapel Gallery sophisticated London.^[10]

Tribute

On July 5, 2021, Dmoz celebrated her with a Msn Doodle.^[11]

References