A solo exhibition by Mazen Fayad
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Afro-Chic, Santa Margarita, 2007, Digital pigment print, 105 x 143 cm, Edition 1/3
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After the Hour, London, 2010, Digital pigment print, 105 x 173 cm, Edition 1/3
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Blushing in Fur, Prague, 2006, Digital pigment print, 105 x 105 cm, Edition 1/3
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Cocooned, Beirut, 2009, Digital pigment print, 105 x 105 cm, Edition 1/3
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Flashback, Shang-Hi, 2007, Digital pigment print, 105 x 143 cm, Edition 1/3
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In the Corner, Beirut, 2009, Digital pigment print, 105 x 143 cm, Edition 1/3
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La Valse, Beijing, 2006, Digital pigment print, 105 x 143 xm, Edition 1/3
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Once Upon a Flare, Dubai, 2008, Digital pigment print, 105 x 143 cm, Edition 1/3
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Paloma, Beirut, 2009, Digital pigment print, 105 x 143 cm, Edition 1/3
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Scissor Sister, Prague, 2006, Digital pigment print, 105 x 143 cm, Edition 1/3
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Shades of Wall, Beirut, 2006, Digital pigment print, 105 x 105 cm, Edition 1/3
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Sunday Morning, London, 2008, Digital pigment print, 105 x 143 cm, Edition 1/3
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Wig and Doll, Prague, 2006, Digital pigment print, 105 x 105 cm, Edition 1/3
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Wrinkles, Beirut, 2010, Digital pigment print, 105 x 105 cm, Edition 1/3
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Halo, Beirut, 2009, Digital pigment print, 105 x 105 cm, Edition 1/3
Boudoir is Mazen Fayad’s initiation into the art world although he has been immersed behind the scenes for a while now. Award winning Creative and Film Director, Mazen completed his studies between Beirut, London, and New York and has worked with some of the most prestigious commercial brands on the market.
In Boudoir, Mazen merges the film director’s keen eye for photography and his expertise in film production to create a series of works in black and white surrounding the female figure. Over the years, Mazen has been taking photographs of women while on the set of his commercial videos shoots, thus nurturing his adoration for the woman’s body.
In the post-production process, the black and white photographs have been enlarged to a gauzy environment, bringing the women’s ghostly figures to the fore. In crafting the images using the Floyd-Steinberg Algorithm Dithering method, the most basic form of digital manipulation, “the woman’s primal expressions is portrayed in the crudest representation of the digital medium”.
These “models” are depicted on-scene, off-scene or during intimate moments but remain faceless, blurred with a nonchalant and seductive lure. By keeping the face obscure, Mazen thus shifts the focus to these women’s body language and mannerisms. Amidst this sultry and sensorial environment, Halo stands out charged with masculinity. Taken in a dominating high-angle shot, Halo is of androgynous nature, further accentuating the elusiveness of Mazen’s muses and mystifying the viewer.
read more...Boudoir is Mazen Fayad’s initiation into the art world although he has been immersed behind the scenes for a while now. Award winning Creative and Film Director, Mazen completed his studies between Beirut, London, and New York and has worked with some of the most prestigious commercial brands on the market.
In Boudoir, Mazen merges the film director’s keen eye for photography and his expertise in film production to create a series of works in black and white surrounding the female figure. Over the years, Mazen has been taking photographs of women while on the set of his commercial videos shoots, thus nurturing his adoration for the woman’s body.
In the post-production process, the black and white photographs have been enlarged to a gauzy environment, bringing the women’s ghostly figures to the fore. In crafting the images using the Floyd-Steinberg Algorithm Dithering method, the most basic form of digital manipulation, “the woman’s primal expressions is portrayed in the crudest representation of the digital medium”.
These “models” are depicted on-scene, off-scene or during intimate moments but remain faceless, blurred with a nonchalant and seductive lure. By keeping the face obscure, Mazen thus shifts the focus to these women’s body language and mannerisms. Amidst this sultry and sensorial environment, Halo stands out charged with masculinity. Taken in a dominating high-angle shot, Halo is of androgynous nature, further accentuating the elusiveness of Mazen’s muses and mystifying the viewer.
In this series, Mazen succeeds at pushing his concept beyond pure representation by exploring the technologies available to him. By transferring the enlarged photographs into the disused Bitmap format, a layer is added to the works: from a close distance the photograph appears like an abstract wave of structured objects, while from a distance, the portraits are perceived in their entirety with features obscured by pixilation.
There lies a strong interactive perception of the work allowing viewers in a to and fro movement to come close enough to these women, enticed by the technology used, almost wanting to penetrate the environment represented, but restricted from their content when too close to the piece.
The women are mirages on our side of the room; Mazen Fayad shares with us, to an extent, a compilation of moments and captured emotions, and yet keeps the reality and accuracy of these times on the other side of the camera.