Marie Zolamian: “Sa Mue”Bombon Projects, Barcelona, Spain

May 7–June 18, 2024

Born in Beirut, Lebanon, and currently residing in Liége, Belgium, the artist Marie Zolamian creates intimately-sized perplexing paintings of a fringe dreamworld that describes neither here nor there. For this exhibition, in a series of sixteen paintings, most loose ends are tentatively tied together with wit, whimsy, and weirdness. Working through a variety of mystical vignettes, we see a playful, perplexing, and sometimes apprehensive tendency in technique. The artist primarily applies very thin layers of oil paint that captivate without clearly revealing anything too concrete in the narrative or in the representation of subject, place, or time.

        One of the more alluring paintings, Choix du roi (2023), is a challenging view, largely a closeup face with a fish skin hat that is home to a number of small heads growing on and falling off of a plant. Along the sides and in the background are a few figures in a garden, presumably unafraid and in admiration of the main subject, forming a surreal creationist narrative. Painted over the face are rootlike veins that suggest a connection to nature and a synergy of all living beings, but not without simultaneously generating a little anxiety. This is Zolamian’s gift, that finnesse within an emotional range while in the act of representation.

         SA MUE (2024) more directly represents a waking dream, or, more specifically, the space between awake and asleep. This transitional moment is exemplified by a pink person sitting on a wooden armchair, who dozes off with their head bobbing back. In this instance, Zoliaman utilizes slightly muddied and muted colors to muddle space and the jostle perspective. The curved horizon line, a familiar reference to the dream state, fixes the narrative scene in a sort of paradise.

        Suc (2023), an easy-to-understand example of the artist’s process, shows how Zoliaman quickly roughs in the sky with a thin wash of slightly blackened blue. In the lower half of the composition, a swiftly brushed layer of gray-brown, that is slightly cooled by whatever blue is picked up from the previous sky wash, forms a steep hill. Along the ridge, nine figures following the edge appear to be looking around like tourists searching for the right vista. The simplicity of this painting, the implied distance of the people, and the relative opacity of the colors of their clothes, at first, seems awkward. However, that awkwardness draws the viewer into the work—where one might then notice the suggested depth of perspective. This is accomplished by having some figures where we can only see the upper half of their bodies, next to one where we can see all the way down to their feet.

        Through my North American lens, the painting Hybris (2024) appears to address the politicization of the plight of the migrant worker. However, the interpretation of alternating heads and (what looks like) lettuce on shelves can have many meanings. Judging by the title, we are looking at the consequences of too much pride, or, perhaps, the commemoration of past victims who stuck their necks out too far. This weighty topic contrasts with Koek en ei (2022), which is a delightful scene, albeit very oddly composed, of a fantastical garden inhabited by contented animals and blue and green acrobats. Here, the artist tests our tolerance for compositional balance with a scene that is both stabilized and obliterated by a large pink mass on the right side. This, and a strategically placed blue line across the lower half of the painting, brings the eye around clockwise, setting up a swoop where the eye rests and repeats in an endless loop.

Sampler—Guillermo Pfaff

Galeria Carles Taché, Barcelona, Spain, April 2024

        “Sampler,” a common term in contemporary music whereby artists use portions of previously recorded songs to set up something like a rhythm or vocal direction in a new composition, is at first a curious title for this exhibition. In this instance the painter Guillermo Pfaff is referring to his repurposing of sections of his less than successful painting where areas are cut away and glued to newly composed, large-scale collage/paintings. In doing so, the artist solves two needs. One, this process increases the size of workspace in the studio by eliminating several stretched canvases that are deemed ineffective; and two, it allows for the creation of new, more contemplative and challenging works. Entering the gallery, the exhibition gives off a feeling of antiquity—prompted by a recognizable fragment of a column, or some other architectural detail, similar to what one might find at ancient sites. I keep thinking of Pompeii as I walk through, catching all the buoyant shapes and subtle colors like disjointed finds from an archeological dig. The way Pffaf cuts the edges of his painting fragments, which look more like an added gesture than any precisely calculated shape, adds to the freshness and immediacy of the work.

         Also common to all the mixed media paintings here is the artist’s use of his surname in large print, suggesting the influence of graffiti tags. Combined with the history or antiquity referred to in the paintings, the exhibition makes a direct connection to the adjacent Gothic Quarter of Barcelona where the artist was born. From the most complex 3 Flat Painting (2024), which reminds me very much of the style of Cubism employed by Picasso in his 1921 painting Three Musicians, to the simplest 7 Slab Painting (2024) where the cut and glued shapes tend more to the dynamics of spatial relations, Pfaff proposes how the tension formed in the voids between the collage elements creates a certain restlessness forced by the focal elements. This in turn drives the suggestion of movement, even sound, closing the loop back to music as referenced by the exhibition’s title.

        1 Slab Painting (2024), which is very similar in composition and color to 7 Slab Painting, has the main difference of three added wavy lines that somewhat calm the tension created by the closeness of half of the main elements to the edge of the canvas. In both of these paintings, the artist adds a multi-colored wood frame. The painted wood, which is in the form of thin strips, adds a subtle, peripheral border when seen from the front. And the border increases the movement and restlessness in the composition by further defining the edge.

        The work titled 2 Flat Painting (2024) with an olive-green background and fluted column on the left-hand side, has strong indications of the plant life sometimes found in architectural details. Consider how Antoni Gaudi included expertly carved stone and cast metal as integral elements to many of his buildings that can be found throughout Barcelona. When looking around Barcelona, I often see faces where they may or may not mean to be. Instead of creating figural imagery, the artist seems to be further emphasizing the ubiquitous graffiti that adorns most roll down security doors which appear from early to mid-afternoon when the shops close within the Gothic Quarter. Overall, this exhibition has the look and feel of a very organic cutting and editing process, revealing the artist’s need to destroy in order to create.

D. Dominick Lombardi is a visual artist, art writer, and curator. A 45-year retrospective of his art recently traveled to galleries at Murray State University, Kentucky in 2019; to University of Colorado, Colorado Springs in 2021; and to the State University of New York at Cortland in 2022.