Ayyam Gallery is pleased to present Painting from the Sixties and Seventies, the forthcoming solo exhibition of pioneering Palestinian artist Samia Halaby. Widely recognised as an innovator of abstraction and a leading painter from the Arab world, Halaby will exhibit a selection of works from the initial period of her oeuvre. The nearly two-dozen paintings on display will offer a rare look into her artistic development by charting several groundbreaking experiments across diverse bodies of work. The exhibition will mark the first time that such a seminal collection of Halaby’s paintings is shown in Europe.
Included in the solo show are examples from the artist’s Geometric Still Life (1966-70), Helixes and Cycloids (1971-75), and Diagonal Flight series (1974-79), which furthered her approach to the depiction of reality through abstraction by establishing formal properties that allude to principles found in nature. In doing so, the artist relies on form to stimulate sensory experiences, allowing viewers to recognise what is familiar in their immediate environment. The works on display demonstrate Halaby’s methodical investigation into a materialist treatment of art, which emphasises establishing aesthetic theories through scientifically informed experimentation.
