Copenhagen Contemporary

Ayan Farah – Pure process and visually amazing works !

Farah´s work is often not painted at all, instead undergoing an elaborate process of digging down, dying and sun bleaching.

Farah obtains the physical and tactile records of natural phenomena as a part of her artistic practice. The artist travels to carefully selected locations scattered in the North European countries and bring the imprints of long-lasting nature processes into existence of her site-specific masterpieces.

For instance the work Eldfell was part of a sleeping bag dug down for six months at the foot of the volcano Eldfell in Heimaey, Iceland. The ash emitted was used to stain the material and to mark the anniversary of its last eruption.

In more recent work Farah has extended her tools from natural sunlight and environmental sources to the use of unconventional technologies such as UV-light from an old fashioned sun bed purchased on ebay which when applied to the materials and cocktail of organic and synthetic paint and fluids causes brilliantly subtle and unexpected results and the work balances on its control of chance.

The delicate nature of the work allows it to become part of space and material. The state of the material shifts as the light changes throughout the day, revealing folds, layers, lucidity and opaqueness.

While supporting the translucent material, the stretcher becomes integrated in the work and the physical space it occupies. In contrast to the time consuming process of sun and UV bleaching, Farah’s physical application process is that of controlling the ingredients of her endeavors and repositioning their results by subtle nuances of overlap, seams, and folds.

Ayan Farah – At Almine Rech

Read more About Ayan Farah  – Vigo Gallery – London

Upcoming Shows: 

Bugada Cargnel – The Figure In The Carpet – Opening Jan 31, 2014

Almine Rech – Brussels – October 2014

Excerpt from a text by : Sara Ingemann Holm-Nielsen Read the full text here >>  Touching Nature

Farah obtains the physical and tactile records of natural phenomena as a part of her artistic practice. The artist travels to carefully selected locations scattered in the North European countries and bring the imprints of long-lasting nature processes into existence of her site-specific masterpieces.

The trademark of her practice is to make use of unconventional technology and natural resources while creating sun-bleached canvases, UV-light processed paintings or solar photographs on silk and cotton. An almost sustainable artistic practice where the canvases and objects deliberately put in different locations become “stained” by the time.

As a result, wind, sunlight, rain and snow penetrate the material so immensely that their traces become fully integrated in the work. This reduces the physicality of the object and makes it part of the physical architectural space it occupies, and also connects it to the non-material lucidity of moving image and sound.

In her own words this is how Farah explain her artistic practice. “It’s about how the work occupies space and co-exits with it, it’s about weight and weightlessness, the making or the unmaking of the work and its nature, it’s cause and creation.”