The 2001 Anne & Gordon Samstag
International Visual Arts Scholarships
| Fassih Keiso | Linda Marrinon | Archie Moore | Rea | John Spiteri | Paul White |
Artist: FASSIH KEISO
Curtain for My Window 1999-2000
installation of computer, chair, table, pillow, glass, light, CD,
digital printing on paper, canvas, vinyl and transparency
variable dimensions
© the artist
Curtain for My Window 1999-2000
installation of computer, chair, table, pillow, glass, light, CD,
digital printing on paper, canvas, vinyl and transparency
variable dimensions
© the artist
The work of Fassih Keiso is located at the point of tension between Middle-Eastern Islamic and Western perceptions of the body and sexuality. Using computer-generated photo-based imagery, his work characteristically fragments the nude female body into a repetitive patterned schema, reminiscent of traditional Islamic patterning but also referencing the grid of Western geometric abstraction.
The detail of these images is bizarre, body parts are divided and flipped into mirror images, inverted and multiplied as in a kaleidoscope. The resultant mounds and bilateral folds are sexually suggestive, reminiscent of seventies feminist 'central core' imagery, but pumped up, hysterical and macabre.
From one point of view the work suggests a play on the Islamic injunction against the representation of the human figure, and a parodic comment on the sublimation of sexual desire into ornament. On the other hand, these mutant bosomy folds, bejewelled and sequined, could be read as parodying the Western fantasy of orientalism as a kind of pornography. The meaning of this work lies somewhere in the crossing between cultures.
Robyn McKenzie
From her Samstag catalogue essay
Art and Research
| Fassih Keiso Born 1956, Syria |
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| 2001 | Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship Non-degree Research Program, New York University, New York, USA |
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| 1998 | Master of Fine Arts (Research), Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne | |
| 1983 | Post Graduate Diploma in Theatre & TV Design, Institute of Fine Art, University of Lebanon | |
| 1982 | Bachelor of Fine Arts, Institute of Fine Art, University of Lebanon |
| Fassih Keiso | Linda Marrinon | Archie Moore | Rea | John Spiteri | Paul White |