Experience of immensity or overwhelming
As an experience of immensity or overwhelming in nature and art the elevated or sublime arouse respect, fear or adoration. As an artist Wahida Azhari renders immensity experienceable for the viewer not by means of figurative representation but by combining colour, light and space.
Although the term ‚sublime‘ is often associated with the epoch of romanticism in the 19th century its definition reaches back to the first century. In his work On the Sublime philosopher Cassius Longinus described immensity as an ‚expression of a great experience‘ powerful enough to generate ‘ecstasy‘. Wahida’s paintings produce this experience by means of size, space and light. Simultaneously clear and playful the fleeting shapes oscillate between figure and ground thus creating tension within their composition. In her works Wahida Azhari develops abstract, mostly homogeneous, sometimes large-sized monochrome coulour screens or surfaces on which lines are applied as ‚raw‘ brush marks.
For the art of painting Wahida Azhari has hence explored essential dimensions of its intrinsic spirituality based on a comprehensive, anthropologically determined affirmation of man in his body dimensions. With her pieces the artist sets out to penetrate the secrets of metaphysics. Her art is religious, an art seeking to capture the fundamental truths of life exclusively by means of ‘existence‘, of ‘being’. The intended effect of these images is to make space conscious to the viewer as well as the interconnections that go beyond. This is achieved by overriding the availability of space by the object and placing the adjacent space, the viewer and the paintings in relation employing surfaces and dimensions.
This approach creates a dynamic space – as the surfaces are set in motion, so are the spaces delimited by the areas altered. Wahida Azhari applies the different qualities of colours and shapes as well as space and time in order to approach viewers or to recede from them, as well as the potential inherent variations of the pieces in space. In this manner free spaces become dynamic, shapes are defined by surfaces and areas, rendered conscious through motion.
In art the so-called white cube is generally perceived as a zone of immateriality, a transitional area and space of permanent renewal. Wahida Azhari counteracts the white cube phenomenon by using it precisely in this sense. It is the capacity to deduce her work exclusively to essence applying simple means and to perceive the white cube as an active void, as a space for transcendence, experience of time and eternity, constitutes the uniqueness of Wahida Azhari’s work. / Dr. Barbara Aust / Art Historian /