The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) launched a weekly plastic reading of the painting "Memory of Things" by the Syrian plastic artist Samer Ismail, in which utensils, stones, and everyday life items intermingle with lines and color paths that erase some of their boundaries.
The Dialectic of Stone and Color
The painting evokes things as carriers of memory, where a visual space is drawn between a light area at the top and an accumulation of dark shapes at the bottom, inviting contemplation of social effects. The geometric structure relies on a vertical arrangement, with white lines resembling time gates or raindrops, while a liquid current of blue, gray, and white flows to melt the scattered utensils.
Archiving the Past
The elements consist of oval stones and earthenware utensils recalled from collective memory, and dark and gray shapes accumulate at the bottom, mimicking the archiving of the past. This composition intermingles with the remains of an old sculpture on the left side, expressing the instability of matter and its transformation into pure sensory traces.
The Table as a Social Symbol
Samer Ismail clarified that he began working on it about five years ago, taking the table as a social symbol that unites the family, before its meaning changed under difficult circumstances. He pointed out that the table has become empty or soaked in blood, with a single bird in the desolate climate, expressing lost intimacy through graduated color layers.
Ismail is a graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Damascus University in 1988 and a member of the Syrian Plastic Artists Union. His experience is characterized by exploring the aesthetics of color and line, with a focus on popular memory.
Source: Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA)
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