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THE GODDESS COMPLEX - Aquatic Arabesque Painting
United Kingdom
Painting, Paper on Paper
Size: 27.6 W x 19.7 H x 1 D in
About The Artwork
Painted over an intense three-week period, ‘Aquatic Arabesque,’ was originally commissioned by an Omani-English couple who were friends of Diriye. ‘The original intention was clichéd,’ he concedes. ‘I wanted to design a belly dancer holding maps of England and Oman in her hands.’ That concept soon got nixed. ‘Although the couple loved the idea, I wasn’t happy with it,’ he says. Instead he created a sprawling aquatic image complete with a larger-than-life goddess, mermaids, merchildren and Arabic love poetry. Using collage, acrylics, waterproof tattoos, paint pens, gutta, 3D paint, coloured pencils and ink, the scale and detail of the painting is his most ambitious to date. ‘Even though the painting has Arabesque flourishes,’ he says, ‘it leans more towards the carnivalesque as it takes in wild, glow-in-the-dark colours. It’s a celebration of a union imagined as an underwater party.’ Of his predominant use of craft-based materials, Diriye says that ‘the whole point of making art is to have fun. When I paint, everything slips away. Reality is subsumed by the escapist pleasure at hand. When I was younger, my parents wouldn’t allow me to draw until I had completed my homework. Drawing was considered a luxury. I still carry with me the idea that making art is a privilege.’ The Arabic poem featured in this print is by the Syrian poet, Nizar Qabbani. It’s called 'Your Love' and it's translated by A.Z Foreman. 'You with your fathomless eyes!/ Your love is extreme/ mystical/ holy. / Like birth and death, your love/ is unrepeatable.'
Details & Dimensions
Painting:Paper on Paper
Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork
Size:27.6 W x 19.7 H x 1 D in
Frame:Not Framed
Ready to Hang:No
Shipping & Returns
Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.
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United Kingdom
THE GODDESS COMPLEX Culturally, Diriye Osman is Somali-British. Creatively, he's an artist-writer. Born in 1983 in Mogadishu, he was encouraged as a child to draw. When the civil war broke out in Somalia, Diriye and his family fled the country for Kenya. Traumatized by the experiences of war and immigration, the then eight-year-old Diriye found refuge in art. He would spend hours in solitude creating fairytale-like fantasies. These fantasies were influenced by Disney and Miyazaki filtered through the Vogue ideal: beautiful, alien-like sylphs with stylised physiques and catwalk stances. "˜It was only after I grew up that I realized that my entire creative life had always been about repression,' says Diriye. "˜I was a gay kid growing up in a society that had no tolerance for homosexuality. I sensed this hostility and it fed into my work. The women, who were goddess-like creatures, became the acceptable, alluring face of what was a dangerous transgression.' Even after coming to terms with his own sexuality and celebrating it in his fiction, Diriye didn't change his artistic subject matter. "˜Art is about compulsion,' he says. "˜These female characters are a huge part of my identity and I relish their strange beauty. As an artist, I hope there's enough mystery, detail and joie de vivre in this ongoing series for the casual observer and the seasoned aesthete.
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