11 - 17 January 2001
Issue No.516
|
Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 11 - 17 January 2001 Issue No.516 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
THE PAINTINGS, folios and prints included in the exhibition Desert Excavations: An Archaeology of Place have a common source, for each originates, and on several levels, from the Western Desert oasis of Dakhleh. They are the work of John O'Carroll, a British born artist who has spent a portion of the past 15 years living and working in the oasis, for the main part as an illustrator on the Dakhleh Oasis Project. Hence the inclusion in the current show of a series of prints, enlargements of O'Carroll's meticulous archaeological drawings of artefacts unearthed by the project's multidisciplinary team.
These representations of fragments from a long and fascinating history -- from prehistoric to Roman times -- are, though, only a starting point. Significantly, they are of objects burrowed out of the surrounding landscape. And while some, such as the comb unearthed with a strand of hair still between the teeth, are remarkably poignant, they remain but one element within an overwhelming landscape that itself is the focus of the artist's own excavations.
O'Carroll's exploration of the land in which such remains are buried takes several forms. The large, abstracted evocations of the oasis are constructed from naturally occurring desert pigments that the artist locates and grinds himself. The techniques used in the larger works have an equally venerable history: from secco graffito to encaustic, they can all be encountered within the vast time span the project covers.
Accompanying the paintings and prints are a series of folios, designated by the artist as desert poems, abstracted studies of this complex, multi-faceted environment, subtle evocations of mood that are accompanied, appropriately enough, by poetry and interleaved with archaeological drawings. Desert Excavations: An Archaeology of Place, an idiosyncratic peeling away of the multi-layered history, both natural and human, of a unique place, is in the Billiard Room of the Residence, British Embassy, Garden City and is open to the public from 16-23 January between 11am and 2pm.
For full details see Listings
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
