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Mohammad Rawas or Mohammad El Rawas (born 1951 in Beirut, Lebanon) is a Lebanese painter and printmaker. He studied arts at the Lebanese University, then moved to London and studied Printmaking at the Slade School of Fine Art. He currently lives and works in Beirut, where he taught at the Lebanese University and the American University of Beirut. [1]
Rawas began his artistic career with the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War. He left the country to Damascus, then to Morocco before returning to Lebanon and leaving again to pursue his studies in London. [2] During the late 1970s and early 1980s he produced a body of prints related to the war and to violence in general. These works were presented at several exhibitions, including “The Road to Peace”, curated by Saleh Barakat at the Beirut Art Center. [3]
From the 1980s and 1990s, Rawas developed a painting practice based on constructions with balsa wood, aluminum and string meticulously built up over portions of canvas. [4] His complex artworks widely use reference to popular culture (manga, comics) and old master paintings such as Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez. [5] In 2013 El Rawas abandons painting to work on creating a series of three-dimensional constructions using multiple materials and techniques. In his latest artistic phase, he goes back to two-dimensional paintings.
For the 2007 Alexandria Biennale, Rawas produced his first installation: Sit Down, Please. The artwork is a multimedia device inspired by a quote from 8th century poet Abu Nuwas related to love and desire within Arab societies. [6]
Magical Realism is what best describes El Rawas’ complex constructions. Each one of his compositions is a layered assemblage of objects and techniques, ideas and references. He borrows, modifies, alters, copies, pastes, reinterprets and decontextualizes objects and concepts he finds in the history of art from Italian renaissance to contemporary art, through haute couture and fashion, comics, architecture and photography. [7]
In October 2008, a painting from 1974, Souk El-Franj, Bab Idriss (Beirut Vegetable Market), was presented with a $40,000 - $60,000 estimate and hammered for $56,250. [8] The mixed media work One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest was proposed in April 2011 for $25,000 - $30,000 and sold for $42,500. [9] Later that year, A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu realized $25,000 with a $25,000 - $35,000 estimate. [10]
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