Omar El Lahib at Saatchi Yates
6th March – 10th April 2024
Saatchi Yates
14 Bury Street
St James’s
London SW1Y 6AL
Saatchi Yates presents the second solo show by Lebanese artist Omar El Lahib. Blurring lines between the fantastical and the everyday, El Lahib’s latest paintings come alive in a mystical world beyond the ordinary, where sunflowers reign supreme.
‘I think Omar El Lahib would rather sleep during the day and stay up all night,’ Dina Bizri Zaki comments, ‘he does not seem that fond of daytime, maybe it is too earth-bound. The night unfolds as a magical realm where life undergoes perpetual reimagining through his prism. It is a realm where everything has the potential to change, experience transformation, and evolve into something or someone entirely different.’
In his latest works, El Lahib invites the viewer into atmospheric, dark landscapes, where intensity is magnified through his application of light. Configuring abstract worlds with sunflowers as a focal point, El Lahib’s figures occupy the space with a power of their own.
Omar El Lahib, “My painting is not primarily about sunflowers, or landscapes, or nature. For me, it’s about painting and colour, about form and accuracy. It is also especially about the human being, with all his tributes! Love and hate, jealousy, pride, fear and joy and much more. All in all, all things that occur in painting are equally important to me. Be it the figure, the landscape, heaven and earth. Everything serves only to concentrate the painting. If not, it will be painted over!”
Dina Bizri Zaki comments, “Omar’s figures inhabit a universe illuminated by stars and radiant, otherworldly flowers. What sets their world apart is its lack of adherence to conventional logic, yet, paradoxically, this deviation appears inconsequential as everything coexists harmoniously without it.
The artist skillfully navigates the realm of form and abstraction, utilising these figures not as literal representations but as conduits to evoke a connection between the viewer and the intangible, dreamlike universe depicted on the canvas.’
Omar El Lahib at Saatchi Yates opens on the 6th of March until the 10th of April 2024 at Saatchi Yates
©2024 Omar El Lahib
Art Plugged is a contemporary platform inspired by a relationship with the broader arts communities. We provide our audience with curated insight into the world of art, from exhibitions to artist interviews and more.
