created 2025-06-17, & modified, =this.modified
tags:y2025art
rel: Disguises Survey of Shadows
Dream has been the title of his work for a long time.
I am not painting the woman; it is the blackness that’s around her – the space.
“Most of the time, I feel I am drawing space - how the space is everywhere, surrounding us, even inside us.”
The images that appear in Dahoul’s paintings are soulful, dreamy, seekers of silence.
“I believe in the spirituality of things,” he explains, “The surrounding blackness could be a man embracing the woman. Maybe the couch that carries and embraces her is a man or maybe the bed of nails…”
In his most recent exhibition, the woman he draws appears several times curled up in a foetal position, closing in on herself (or maybe the blackness is closing in around her). Her arms or fingers are often crossed and sometimes her eyes are vacant, while in other works they glance out invitingly, hinting at a possibility of liberation from the closed space. What is constant is the viewer’s response – to protect this mysterious woman.
