Three Wadi Finan exhibitions featured for Amman Design Week

AMMAN — Wadi Finan Art Gallery created three solo exhibitions for Amman Design Week.

The gallery showcases the exhibition by multimedia artist Dodi Tabbaa titled “Chapters: Phases and Stages”, Hayan Maani’s “Arabic Words” focusing on calligraphy and Hana Ghawi and Raya Kassisieh’s “Do you see the light?” for LAMBA neon.

“We showcase established artists as well as emerging artists. So at the moment, we have three generations represented here,” Suha Lallas, the curator of the three exhibitions and owner of Wadi Finan Art Gallery told The Jordan Times on Monday.

“Every year, Wadi Finan Gallery participates in Amman Design Week. For this year, I put these three exhibitions together as the Amman Design Week theme of possibilities also runs through different ages and backgrounds,” she added.

“These artists are also experimenting with different possibilities of different mediums,” she said.

Dodi Tabbaa, the “most-established artist of the showcase” was born in 1952 in Quetta, Pakistan.  Her exhibition features tapestry, paper scrolls, textiles, prints and porcelain plates.

“She is very creative and works with many mediums,” Lallas said. 

Tabbaa’s solo exhibition brings together a culmination of thoughts, processes and experiments that she has been exploring over the last six years, according to a gallery statement.

“I have a curiosity around mediums and ways of producing work. My background in graphic design and textiles pushed me to appreciate industrial materials and methods. My knowledge in studio arts has allowed me to be playful — almost rebellious — with these materials,” Tabbaa was quoted as saying in the statement.

The Jordanian Hayan Maani is “a multi-talented artist whose work covers a wide array of design directions”, from paintings and sculpture to calligraphy and interior design, according to the gallery. 

His solo exhibition contains calligraphic sculptures and paintings representing Arabic letters and words.

LAMBA neon’s name is derived from the Arabic word for light bulb. Working with neon art, they “resurrect an 80s trend” and include English and Arabic “affirmative and witty phrases” in their artwork.

 “We usually have our pieces mounted on frames, but here we wanted everything directly on the wall and we also used mirrors,” Ghawi said in an interview with The Jordan Times on Monday.

“Everything you see in the exhibition is things you hear a lot. It is just everyday, normal things. Some of it is witty and some of it is very affirmative,” she noted, adding “We only used handwritten fonts. We used my mom’s handwriting, Raya’s and mine.”

The exhibitions will be on display until the end of the month and entry is free of charge, according to the organisers.