Ica Wahbeh explores Dia Azzawi's paintings and limited edition works, currently on display at 4 Walls.

Dia Azzawi is not new to the art scene of Amman. This time, though, he exhibits alone a series of “limited edition prints, 2005-2006”, offering a whirlwind of colours and images that give no time to think but draw further, to the next representation and the one after.
His prints elicit visual stimulation that sends the mind searching, in one short moment, all the familiar and unknown images stored, in an effort to anchor it into some recognizable reality from which it can relate to them. Not easy and quite disconcerting, as except for a few identifiable shapes, the rest is unfamiliar territory.
“Coloured horizon” offers a vertical separation of planes, a world turned on its side that makes you tilt the head to get the familiar position of the horizon -- that which experience and teaching let you know as the line where sky and earth meet.
The lines, present in all Azzawi’s current works, move in unexpected directions, turn at odd angles, fall back on themselves, cross each other or go in parallel, change breadth or split, create a chaotic movement in which the artist puts some sort of order by creating odd, challenging, large jigsaw puzzle pieces that the viewer is invited to put together to construct the overall image.
The lines sensibly follow a straight path only to change course, on a whim, deciding to form sharp angles or soft curves, furiously squiggle or stop dead in their path, frustrating the brain that seeks an exit from this labyrinth that leads nowhere.
A thick brush stroke at times, the lines become thin at others, changing colour all of a sudden, stopping with a jolt the eye that follows them. The normally abstract representations are given movement, by the playful (mischievous) lines that narrate the story in self-generating live motion.
As if the planes these dizzying lines create were not enough, Azzawi splits his canvases into several levels, different as composition and colour, distinguished settings that make room for other forms and colours which, eventually, come together in a mysterious whole.
Not entirely abstract, the prints at times assume tactile dimensions, becoming plain, striped or flowery fabric, finely spun or loose like sack cloth, tempting the surprised viewer to touch and make sure it is not really textile but print.
Images like these create the “Unattended garden”, the “Arab market” series, or are part of the “Iraqi day”.
In “Memory of a friend”, a shape reminiscent of Ismail Fattah’s heads puts one on more familiar footing, only to disappear, immediately, in the maze of lines and trails the artist is so keen on.
“The back of Arabian desert” set challenges the notion one has of the desert. True, ochre can be seen in the background, but the artist surprises the viewer with unexpected splashes of colour, flowers, green spatters and lines. Life does exist in the desert too, only one has to look for it, perhaps in “the back of the desert”.
The “Old map” is worn out by time, with streaks of colour running down in vertical stripes. Nothing in the way of a map is there to suggest it, but maybe it is a “genetic” map, the imprint of the artist’s memory of things.
And nothing is wintry or dark in the “Winter garden”, but by now one comes to expect a topsy turvy world and accept the abundance of colour (even pastel blue or pink) and the icy bluish and darker spots as suggestive of winter and snow. It is, rather, a cozy place, one where you could warm the soul in a dark, cold winter day.
The “Poet sadness” assumes red, magenta, blue, grey and black hues. A few written lines talk about it, and the disorganized dots of colour may make you share the mood, but it is rather an uplifting image.
An interesting composition, “The wonder of creation” is charged with symbols. The lower human body and the torso end in a fish head, hint at evolution, at life coming into being. The coloured composition is surrounded by grey, issues from the darkness of nothingness into the brightness of human existence. Arabic writing accompanies both “wonder of creation” prints, talking perhaps of the time religion came into the life of people, creating another wonder, bringing spiritualism in their lives.
Three interesting frames have attachments that complete the images above. Colour fills the entire space, spilling beyond, going down into the smaller space below in a higher concentration of imagery, trying, with the last stroke of brush to finish telling the story.
In “Secret writing”, letters and numbers make up some coded language awaiting deciphering, the only disciplined shape in the abstract surrounding of lines, splashes of colour and dots.
Vivid colours in all the palette tones, layered textures and unpredictable lines give life and depth to Azzawi’s images, send you into a world of organic and inorganic, abstract and concrete, colour and blackness that leaves you with more questions than answers.
Five interesting “limited edition catalogues” are illustrations by Azzawi of poems and writings by Claude Aveline (her familiar to Jordanians “Portrait de l’oiseau qui n’existe pas”), Fadil Al Azzawi’s “Every morning the war gets up from sleep”, Mudaffara Al Nawwab’s Alrail wa hamad”, Adonis’ “Al Mutanabi, visual verses”, and of Saadi Youssef’s “L’Akhdar Ben Youssef and his concerns”.
The exhibition, at 4 Walls gallery, Sheraton Hotel, will show until April 26.