Ayyam Gallery Beirut is pleased to present Thresholds 3.0, the solo exhibition of painter Mouteea Murad.
The third presentation of Mouteea Murad’s latest body of work, Thresholds 3.0, highlights a selection of paintings from the artist’s 2016 solo exhibition Thresholds presented at Ayyam Gallery Dubai. In this series Murad experiments with the use of mathematics in geometric abstraction, an approach to non-objective art that he developed over the course of a decade. Presenting a select number of large-scale paintings in a different setting allows the viewer to further explore Murad’s emphasis on space and dimension, which he masters by both drawing on the formalism of Op art and using the Fibonacci number sequence as a starting point for his compositions. The artist’s use of the numerical sequence and mathematical functions results in an impression of motion and the illusion of expanding space within the works. His grid-like patterns partially conceal the interactions of the polygons and lines of the layer below them, creating an illusion of depth. As the distances between the grid lines change, the paintings appear to swell and contract in front of the viewer.
Murad continues to draw inspiration from Islamic art while employing forms and lines largely defined by algebraic functions, allowing for his work to see a unification of spirituality and formalism.
