Description:
Assi’s sharply defined portraits of still impression elongated and often melancholic figures of young men and women call for attention alongside her cluttered cityscapes that are crammed with wires, television antennas and buildings stacked precariously on top of one another. Her canvasses are filled with interwoven lines set against bold fields of colour abstractions. Lines of varied width and texture swirl rhythmically beyond the picture plane thus echoing the sense of a dynamic energy.
Zena Assi never makes preparatory sketches and instead begins by priming her canvases directly. The base layer is created using mixed media followed by adding different textures and materials; tissue paper, cloth, broken brushes to name a few. The result is contrasting layers of thick impasto. The artist often finishes off with a layer of oil colours which give her canvasses their peculiar, vigorous luminosity.

“To fall short of perfection is not a failure but a process of erasure. It is the trace left by the ineluctable diminution that accompanies the realisation of the drawing.” - E. Schiele, painter
“Those moments of heady exaltation which all creators experience and whose shorter or longer duration is the only thing that distinguishes the artist from the dreamer.” - G. Richter, painter
“I used to hate it. Now I love it, this chaos we have here.” - Zena Assi

Zena Assi: http://artsawa.com/ArtistsList?AID=Mw2
PREVIEW VISUALS