Galerie Claude Lemand

Nasser AL ASWADI (Yemen, 1978)
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Nasser Al Aswadi :
I borrow from each ancient scroll hidden in every corner of Yemen and take them out to light, to con­tem­po­rary eyes. I use the energy of words and light. Writing is at the heart of my work: it escapes the reg­ister of pure ter­mi­nology to enter the field of the sign, of visual lan­guage.

Biography and Works :
Nasser Al Aswadi was born in October 4th, 1978 at al Hujr vil­lage, not far from Taiz, the third city of Yemen. He lived in his vil­lage until he turned 16 years old. Later on, he studied archi­tec­ture in Taiz and then in Sanaa. He exhib­ited his first works in Sanaa in 2001. Since 2008, Nasser has been moving between Yemen and France.

For Nasser Al Aswadi, cal­lig­raphy is a way to express feel­ings and thoughts without them being specif­i­cally linked to the lan­guage. He uses Arabic let­ters, words and forms as well as reli­gious and musical sources. The wide variety of mean­ings and styles nourish the artist’s cre­ativity.

Nasser’s work is inspired by the events of the Arab Spring, daily real­i­ties, rural land­scapes, archi­tec­ture, and public crowds on the streets. As he was always keen to trans­late this expe­ri­ence into artistic cre­ations, in each piece of work, Nasser picks a writing style that lends the best sense and pas­sion to that par­tic­ular work. Letters and words are not drawn on a straight line or hor­i­zon­tally, but painted and stacked sep­a­rately and are iden­tical to each other, tan­gled and lost in the imag­i­nary space of the painting.

The pur­pose of using inter­locking let­ters is to offer an artistic style of his own. Nasser has exhausted all the dif­ferent styles of Arabic writing to create a world in which his work is abstract and is obvi­ously inspired by everyday events and con­comi­tantly makes use of the energy and light of the words he selects. Writing is the core of his work and it strays from the normal usage of those terms to enable others to enter into a world of sign and visual lan­guage.
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Interview with Nasser Al Aswadi, 2016.

A com­bi­na­tion of his­tory and the sacred, the work of Nasser Al Aswadi stands out, unique.

 Nasser Al Aswadi tell us about your­self …
Since child­hood I wanted to become an artist. But in Yemen no art schools were avail­able, so I studied archi­tec­ture, while con­tin­uing to paint. In 2001, for the first time, I exhib­ited my works at the French Cultural Center in Sanaa ten years after I started painting. In 2004, I trav­eled to Tours in France to study the French lan­guage for four months, that were a turning point in my life. I con­tinued to study and develop my work through intern­ships, moving between Yemen and France. Since 2008 my time is divided between Marseille and Sanaa but a year ago I set­tled in Marseille because of the war.

 You cut frag­ments of scrolls and parch­ments, into small pieces trans­forming the let­ters and words into visual signs strat­i­fied to create palimpsests. The col­or­less forms, cir­cles or rect­an­gles, take us to a mag­ical world rem­i­nis­cent of sacred geom­etry. Why this medium?
I believe that the medium is com­pli­men­tary to the idea that the artist is trying to express. In fact there must be a dialec­tical rela­tion­ship between the medium and the artist’s vision; between his vision and his skills. The medium itself isn’t enough. Personally I try all kinds of mate­rial. Also if you look at my work you see that black and white pre­dom­i­nate most of my work. This goes back to the fact that I was raised in a home where there were no colors.

 You said: I borrow from each ancient scroll hidden in every corner of Yemen and take them out to light. Are you trying to express cer­tain mys­tical inspi­ra­tion?
Yemen is one of the richest coun­tries in the Arab world with manuscripts and scrolls ; you can find them nearly in every house. These and the myth­ical sto­ries told by old women, the designs and cal­lig­raphy on the walls of mosques, the dec­o­ra­tion of the domes, all this is imprinted in my mind since child­hood. The artist is part of his sur­round­ings and is affected by it.

 Is your unique style the mirror of your Yemeni and Arab roots? Or is it the
out­come of long studies in art in gen­eral and hard per­sonal work?
I think both are true. Each com­pli­ments the other. There is a great strong bond between my ancestry roots and my cre­ations. It is a priv­i­lege to realize how strong its impact is on me. Though it has influ­enced me in one way or the other, still it is nec­es­sary for the artist to be edu­cated and to have a great knowl­edge in the his­tory of art. Add to it per­sonal work and con­tin­uous research. My artistic age is not long, but with con­tin­uous work and research I believe I can achieve some­thing.

 Where do you feel more at ease in Yemen or in France?
I am lucky to be able to live in two com­pletely dif­ferent coun­tries from many points of view. Each has its own char­ac­ter­is­tics cul­tur­ally, socially and eth­ni­cally, which makes each country spe­cial to me. France gave me what Yemen didn’t and vice versa. Actually I am living con­stantly in Marseille because of the war in Yemen but my country is in my heart never leaving me.

 What do you think of the artistic move­ment in Yemen and what is your advice to young artists?
The artistic move­ment in Yemen has wit­nessed a remark­able devel­op­ment since the six­ties. It is impor­tant com­pared to the fig­u­ra­tive move­ments in other Arab coun­tries. But unfor­tu­nately the art to develop needs polit­ical and eco­nom­ical sta­bility, and gen­eral aware­ness. Nevertheless I am abso­lutely sure of its bright future, and would like to say to the young Yemeni artists that we are an old civ­i­liza­tion and that our country is very rich in cul­ture and his­tory, so delve in them for inspi­ra­tion and cre­ativity.
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Public Collections:
 Paris. Museum, Institut du monde arabe. Donation Claude & France Lemand 2018.