Matières spéculaires

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Matières spéculaires

15 March - 06 April 2024

Jacques Leegenhoek,
Rue de Lille,
Paris,
France,
35,
75007

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Nagham Hodaifa explores the theme of the mirror, described by Leonardo da Vinci as the “master of painters.” For the artist, it is far more than a polished surface that reflects light — it is a tool for contemplation, reverie, and observing the passage of time. The mirror also becomes a space for self-exploration, a mise en abyme that opens the path to inner truth. A series of variations on a single theme, Matières spéculaires also holds metaphorical significance. It unmistakably raises the question of our complex relationship with ourselves and others, revealing the inherent duality between image and material reality, between self and other — a fragile space that nevertheless forms the fertile ground of otherness, inspiration, and artistic creation. On large-scale canvases — a format that offers the artist room to express her energy and the freedom of her brushwork — vibrant colors unfold. The pigments, ground by hand in the studio using traditional methods, are dominated by shades of green (teal, bluish green, emerald, English green, Veronese green, etc.), sometimes balanced with fiery reds and golden hues. The thick material covering the canvas is applied with energetic intensity, revealing a visceral relationship with the paint that also, quite simply, expresses the joy of painting.

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Nagham Hodaifa

1981 Syria

Born in 1981 in Swaida el-Kafer in Syria, Nagham Hodaifa has lived and worked in France since 2005. She studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Damascus University before embarking on a course in art history at the Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne, where she defended her thesis on Marwan Kassab Bachi, which she published in 2018 under the title Marwan, face à face.

The central theme of Hodaifa’s work is the human condition, which she explores through the representation of the body. The body, anonymous, stripped or draped, whole or fragmentary, is sometimes transformed into a landscape and becomes a geography of the intimate.

On small-format paper or monumental canvases, Hodaifa's painting expresses an ardour and freedom that unfold in vibrant colours. The pigments, ground in the studio using the old-fashioned way, are dominated by greens (duck green, bluish green, emerald green, English green, Veronese green, and others), sometimes balanced by flamboyant reds and golds. It's a thick material that covers the canvas, deposited energetically, in a body to body relationship with the paint. It's a hand-to-hand relationship that is also expressed in performance paintings, in which Hodaifa surrounds herself with musicians, dancers, poets, singers or video artists... as in 2019, when she created two performances for the Institut du monde arabe in Paris, entitled The Night Attire and Mirage... Sarâb.