Ayyam Gallery is pleased to present Nota Bene, a solo exhibition featuring works by Abdul Karim Majdal Al-Beik.
‘The walls alone know our secrets,’ wrote Imad Mustafa, a poet and one of Al-Beik’s closest friends. This nota bene is just one of many composed by Al-Beik. “If walls are the canvases of madmen, then these madmen are my teachers,” he once wrote. Walls are people’s palimpsest and the daubed drops of paint, their ink. Through the plaster and paint, Al-Beik tells us society’s stories.
Al-Beik’s creativity reflects wisdom and sensibility beyond his years. The artist notices how each wall possesses a different character that, over time, changes shape, texture, and color thanks to the sun and the rain. Al-Beik and his work register time, climate, and environment, life’s inevitables. Al-Beik infuses each canvas with the essence of his surroundings, revealing in the individuality each piece offers. Careful to maintain authenticity in his expression, basic wall-building materials are Al-Beik’s tools. To reconstruct the passage of time, he applies several layers to each canvas.
