FROM THE EXPO

"Add me.. Tag me.. Like me.." solo exhibition soon!

Solo exhibition by Suzanne Saoub

Dissecting the layers of expression to represent virtual characters

Exposició de Suzanne Saoub
Disseccionant els nivells d'expressió per representar comportaments virtuals

Inauguració el 4 de Juny a les 19:30-22:30
Amb música en directe.

Fins el 15 de Juny,
a la galeria Untitled BCN

C/ Topazi, 14, L3: Fontana

+34 93 2188854

Horari:

Dilluns a Divendres 17:00 -21:00

Dissabte fins a les 22:00

suzanne.saoub@gmail.com

Description & material

Installation of 11 portraits each 1.8mx1.1m

Acrylic on vegetal paper, 10 flashing lights, vinyl cut outs

Artist Statement

Here we go again! The daily ritual of sitting in front of the screen… few minutes until we dwell and get sucked into the potent and addictive virtual social life we have beneath our fingertips!

In this installation I am displaying large sized portraits of profile pictures of some of my own ‘friends’, taken from the most popular social network, Facebook. They have been picked randomly, but nevertheless they all – perhaps subconsciously - share some implication. My attention focuses on the virtual existence of individuals, which is normally endorsed by an image; a picture that has been specifically chosen, in order to provide an eloquent representation in this made-up world. It seems that the profile image has been selected not only to reflect a certain idea about the person, but for me it provokes some reactions and induces a range of emotions and thoughts. If you try and focus you might notice that whether this person is close to you or not, liked by you or disliked, the viewer (you) cannot help but experience something…

The portraits were painted on tracing paper and then installed in front of a slowly flashing light source. The material being transparent allows the light to go through the layers of paint, showing a totally different face than that portrait seen few seconds before. This contrast is intended to demonstrate the different qualities of the real and unreal personalities and thus causing what I call a “visu-motional” (visual and emotional) mélange. Also the fragile property of the paper reflects the frailty of that existence. And to foster the virtual experience, each portrait was sub-layered with a die cut of a popular icon taken from Facebook, appearing whenever the light flashes.

By creating this investigational installation, I’m trying to draw attention to the hyper-emotional experience encountered each day and also criticizing the pretentious, yet extremely involving, simulated lives one can have on the web.

Superficial Idiocy

Artwork: fake Facebook profile for a person called Sabrina Ted

Recently and sadly, the human social life is becoming more like a system that we are all doomed to follow blindly; one of the most popular (and I think somehow disturbing) social portals is the Internet’s new phenomenon called Facebook. My intention is to try to reach the people’s minds’ in a site-specific manner, so I chose to access them by creating a forged Facebook account of a person who is hopelessly addicted to this network and extremely active online.

I am using this exaggerated image of the narrow-dimensional character in order to mock the social superficiality and shallowness that we all carry out on a daily basis, hoping that this artwork will open the minds of the digital generation and grab their attention to the full picture, to be able to see the things from top.

Metàfora

Before: had a serious-long-working-hours-office-based job, also well paid, with extremely little time to paint, make art or enjoy little things in life.

Metafora: a place where I had plenty of time along with my own little studio-kinda-shared area, where I was able to produce some art while being surrounded with many resources like tutors/tutorials, workshops and artists-friends as well.

On top of it all: I was lucky to meet my wonderful tutor Piotr Perski who really influenced my investigations with his powerful artistic eye and experiences, along with the great tutors supervising the workshops.

After: the vision is becoming clearer and the feeling is becoming stronger: hopefully more work with the never-ending stream of ideas… to be expressed and then exhibited.

I Like: Picasso, architecture, Anish Kapoor, Belgian pralines, YouTube, summer dresses, jet setting, cubes and cubism, Arabic calligraphy, Spanish language, the breathtaking mountain tops in Petra, water melon artificial flavor, animation, mixing colors and inventing techniques... etc

And Dislikes: unexpectedly falling objects, living in Dubai, Movistar, TVs, grapefruit, globalization, expensiveness, racism, banks and embassies... etc

Untitled 01

Dimensions: 1m x 0.5m

Technique: Sculpture from lingerie, used cotton pads on foam manikin

The piece is about beauty or should I call it “good looks”, which has always been significant in one’s life, and more overpoweringly for women, who are expected to have a certain amount of beauty in order to have a normal life and sexuality, and is becoming a body limit that most females have to put up with. I used dirty cotton pads that were used to remove make-up, and shaped them into a piece of lingerie with its appealing design, then I displayed it as a precious and sexual female outfit.

The used cotton pads represent both the presence of the dirty leftovers that were used to make beauty, and the absence of the artificial mask; portraying with this contradiction the complexities of the beauty needs within their own selves. The piece is also associated with the feelings and the thoughts rushing into the mind during these moments spent in front of the mirror, while removing the outer layer and throwing it away.

Just a Dream

Size: 0.5m x 0.5m x1.58m

Material: wooden chair, 120 drinking glasses

You sleep, you go to another place, you do things you can’t do in reality, you meet people… you get to encounter that person you wanted to see, you feel it, it’s almost real. Suddenly! You wake up! It‘s just a dream

My artwork consists of a wooden chair, attached to its legs piles of drinking glasses that are placed upside down on top of each other forming four long transparent extensions supporting the chair that was placed on top.

Using the empty chair as a symbol of the unreal presence of someone, and this semi-existence within the chair is made more fragile by being placed on top of the piled cups; giving it a week gesture and suggesting both vulnerability and unreliability of the situation. The upside down cups are inviting for an event to happen, great expectations, building up hope for another illusory meeting.

“Vostè està aquí”*

Material: 30 digital prints mounted on foam board

Dimensions of each: 30 x 30 cm

When I moved to Barcelona, a city full of art, color and culture; I felt enthused to investigate the different visuals that provoke a diversity of thoughts and sensations.

My piece includes a collection of photographs taken in different places within the city. The images share a similar form, as I caught the specific round shaped visuals that were eye-catching and mind-grabbing to me as a person from the outside of this rich culture.

This uniformity of the shapes turned these pictures into distinct icons that filtrate into the memory, and reflect a certain vision of an individual experience.

* An expression in Catalan that means “you are here”