Effigies: Drawings by Lawand, Poems by Pascale Petit, now available from The Mosaic Rooms

Effigies is now available from The Mosaic Rooms or its online shop for £12. This artbook collaboration contains fifteen drawings by the Syrian Kurdish painter Lawand and fifteen poems The Mosaic Rooms commissioned me to write in response to them this summer.

"The result is a deeply moving and imaginative work." Omar Qattan, The A.M. Qattan Foundation

About the artist Lawand and his exhibition Equinox: From Beirut to London

The Mosaic Rooms is currently showing Equinox, From Beirut to London, the first UK solo exhibition by Syrian artist Lawand. The exhibition features new paintings and drawings by the artist, made recently during a prolonged stay in Beirut, Lebanon.

Lawand’s paintings and drawings are dominated by elongated effigies with faceless heads, hanging or hiding in their hands. They float in formless backgrounds thick with paint, situated in the material and yet strangely placeless. The artist often hints at their movement, but denies them real motion, wrapping his figures in a private world within the painted surface. Most appear alone or with a child, each treated with a looseness of touch and depth of form that invests them with intimacy; in both large and small scale these untitled works are hauntingly emotive.

“I am not a painter of loneliness, even though my paintings are so little populated. I see in each and every one of my characters the entire human race. My characters often seem to be moving slowly and sluggishly but they are headed towards the endless path of light…so that my paintings express a desire to live!” (Lawand, 2013).

Lawand’s practice is also heavily influenced by poetry, and he has created a number of publications in collaboration with renowned poets. Born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1984, Lawand came to France with his family when he was ten. He lives and works predominantly in Lille, France.

The exhibition is on until 29th November and entry is free. Effigies was launched on 19 October in the galleries, during a talk between Lawand and Pascale on poetry and art. Photo by Carine Mneimneh.