Two Lionesses Unite in the City of Peace
- Fred McGrail
- Jul 5
- 3 min read
Hello Freddos,
First off, it's good to be back. Secondly, Coventry is the city of peace and reconciliation? Did anyone else not know this? I love learning stuff like that! By knowing this you can understand and make the connection as to why the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum was chosen to hold the exhibition.
This shared but united exhibition by Maya Davis-Stokes and Anisa Mosaiebiniya was in response to the ongoing conflict in their respective countries. Maya being British-Israeli and Anisa being Iranian, their collaboration was to show unity and solidarity. Working to disprove what some would believe that they're instinctively, enemies.
"We were the only ones that were checking in with each other about how our families are abroad."
If you keep up with my gallery visits you'll know we're no stranger to Maya, a quick reminder, her practise focuses on multiple themes but distortion remains consistent, specifically within how something can become distorted when perceived from one angle. Anisa, pulls from memory. Doesn't memory have a way of feeling fuzzy or 'distorted' so to speak? She incorporates scrawled written language into some of her pieces as a way to keep them private. They act as a letter, or a diary, a personal reference for herself to relate back.
Although the space was shared, the work felt intertwined, resulting in an exhibition which truly felt like a collaborative, united, singular body of work, successful in it's goal of embodying an overarching message of friendship.
"We need to build connections rather than divisions."
My attention was demanded by the surface of each painting, Maya has a painting technique that I willingly find myself getting lost in, my brain finds itself trying to make sense of the distortion, piecing it together into something I can recognise. It's at this point where you start to notice the narrated details within. Anisa has a technique which feels intuitive and immediate, as if time is an element she can't waste, which sounds like an insult but I mean quite the opposite...
I'm not saying that the work felt rushed, instead I interpreted the work in a way that feels like an instant flash moment, similar to a polaroid. A glance into her mental album, a quick snap of a blink. There's this need to get it into the physical world before it becomes a distant 'distorted' memory. Mom pulls solely on specific focal points like subject, shape, and colour. When thinking of a memory, isn't this what we think of? I know I do.
The use of colour reminds me of black and white photography which was converted into sepia tones. For those that don't know, sepia photography involves solely warm brownish-yellow colours and because of that this painting has the same aged look to it. Mom is a memory from the 80's, pulled from around 40 years ago. You can tell without even clocking the written decade within the painting, the aged colour palette tells you. I had mentioned earlier about Anisa's use of language in her work, can you see it in the background? It's subtle but its there, she's allowed the text to get slightly lost, like it's not for us or that it's far away. It's barely leginle to prevent anyones understanding, making it all the more personal to her.
This piece by Maya is a depiction of Cyrus the Great of Persia, you can see the ways Maya has brought the story into today with the addition of glasses to imply human imperfection. You can see modern-day Israelis inside a bomb shelter hiding from the conflict with Iran. For those that don't know, Cyrus the Great historically let the Jews leave Babylon to go back to their homeland. This story is portrayed here, but instead, it's providing a narrative for modern day Israelis. Did you clock the desert that can be seen behind them? This serves as a path to their freedom.
Maya's work is political, personal and explores additional themes like displacement, identity and the ongoing complicated relationship between Iran and Isreal. You can find out more on her work here. Alternatively the show is on until the 18th July, if you can get there I highly recommend it. For more information you can visit the shows Instagram page.
