PAST EXHIBITIONS:

BASIM MAGDY, ENEAS CAPALBO, CHITRA GANESH 

Wednesday, June 28, 6 – 8 pm

Newman Popiashvili Gallery has invited Eneas Capalbo, Chitra Ganesh, and Basim Magdy to create murals on the gallery’s walls. Historically, murals have been created to establish some sort of dialogue between artist, patron, and the public audience. Each of the artists has brought his or her story to fruition using this age-old tradition. Chitra Ganesh and Basim Magdy have often worked as muralists, while Eneas Capalbo will be undertaking the task for the first time.

Center wall of the gallery is dedicated to Chitra Ganesh’s mural Inside Pandora. This artist has been making murals in various venues around town – her mural was one of the highlights of QMA’a Fatal Love exhibition last year as well as Rotunda Gallery and Roebling Hall. In her mural at the gallery Ms. Ganesh uses her signature imagery of female figures referencing Hindu mythology, Bollywood posters and comic books.

Basim Magdy’s Snowball Effect of Delusion, located on the right wall, is about breaking stereotypes. The mural at the gallery captures a critical moment that appears to be a tense battle scene. The imposing figure in the foreground is under attack by soldiers, but the target is both attached to a tree and appears to be a static sculpture. The absurdist nature of the mural highlights the absurdist nature of war. The mural is also a sardonic exercise about Western media’s monopolizing a single idea of power and military might. Magdy raises questions about how much we should doubt what we know, and whether this doubt could lead us to the truth. Previously Magdy did a mural at Kunsthalle St. Gallen in 2004 in collaboration with Marianne Rinderknecht.

Eneas Capalbo titles his mural after the song of Grandmaster Flash - “The White Lines.” The mural loosely refers to the MTV screen dividers, the ‘80s music and the infamous bad art. According to the artist he is in search of a “perfect abstract portrait of a decade.” In his latest series of works Mr. Capalbo has been recreating the aura of the ‘80s. These paintings are devoid of any meaning except for picking up a certain feeling of an era.