Solo exhibition · 5 May – 5 June 2023 · Andakulova Gallery
Almaz: Solo Exhibition at Andakulova Gallery, Dubai
Rima Chahine’s second solo exhibition at Andakulova Gallery in DIFC, Dubai: abstract paintings in acrylic about healing, forgiveness and the people we become.
- Category
- Solo exhibition
- Dates
- 5 May – 5 June 2023
- Venue
- Andakulova Gallery
- Location
- Damac Park Towers, DIFC, Dubai
Almaz was Rima Chahine’s second solo exhibition at Andakulova Gallery, in Damac Park Towers in DIFC, Dubai’s financial district. It opened on 5 May 2023 and ran until 5 June, bringing together a body of abstract paintings in acrylic on canvas made with the vivid colour and bold, gestural brushwork her work is known for.
The show brought Rima back to the gallery that hosted Emotions, her first solo exhibition, in 2019. Where Emotions traced the ups and downs of her life so far, Almaz looked at what comes after them: healing, forgiveness, and the people we become.
A title with two meanings
Almaz can be read as “attractive” or “charming”, and the paintings live up to the name. Each is made to catch the eye first and then to hold it, rewarding a longer look with layers of colour worked into one another and built up stroke by stroke.
The story beneath the surface
Beneath that surface is a hard chapter of Rima’s own life. After a separation she raised her two young sons alone in a foreign country, and she found her way through it by turning inward, towards introspection and forgiveness. That healing is still at the centre of her life and her sons’ lives, and it is the ground every painting in Almaz grows from.
She paints from her own experience because she trusts it will reach other people’s. The feelings in these canvases are hers, but they are rarely unfamiliar to anyone who stands in front of them.
“Each painting has a message, a name and an interior. I can tell which painting is right for someone. When I meet someone, I know where they are in life and can see what they want, need, and which painting would match their character.”
A painter who reads people
Before painting took over her life, Rima studied communication, art and business journalism, and worked in PR and events. Those years gave her a close interest in people, and they shape how her work finds its homes. She names every canvas, gives it a story, and likes to meet the people who collect her paintings, so that each goes to someone it suits and to a room where it can be seen at its best.
The paintings
The works in Almaz range from the tender to the turbulent. Endearment holds warm, close colour; Serenity settles into calm; Sun Chasing sets yellows, oranges and reds against a soft blue. Lightening is all charged, sweeping movement, while The Aftermath, at 120 × 150 cm the largest canvas in the group, carries darker, muted tones and the weight of what is left behind. Naked, the smallest, is a close field of deep blues.
Most of these paintings are still in the collection, each with its own page, size, year and price. Further down this page they hang together, to scale, in the exhibition room.
Between East and West
A Lebanese-Canadian raised in Montreal and based in Dubai, Rima paints from more than one culture, and her work draws on all of them. That made Almaz a natural fit for Andakulova Gallery, which works to bring the art of Central Asia and the Middle East into conversation in Dubai.
In the press
The exhibition was previewed by Gulf Today and featured by Arte & Lusso, and What’s On Dubai named it one of the art exhibitions to see in the city that May.
Almaz
Walk the exhibition
The AftermathAcrylic on canvas
120 × 150 cm
47.2 × 59.1 in
2018
NakedAcrylic on canvas
60 × 75 cm
23.6 × 29.5 in
2019
CardiacAcrylic on canvas
100 × 100 cm
39.4 × 39.4 in
2018
EndearmentAcrylic on canvas
100 × 100 cm
39.4 × 39.4 in
2018
BeautyAcrylic on canvas
100 × 100 cm
39.4 × 39.4 in
2018
Sun ChasingAcrylic on canvas
100 × 100 cm
39.4 × 39.4 in
2018
I See YouAcrylic on canvas
100 × 100 cm
39.4 × 39.4 in
2018
LighteningAcrylic on canvas
100 × 70 cm
39.4 × 27.6 in
2018
SerenityAcrylic on canvas
100 × 100 cm
39.4 × 39.4 in
2018- The whole collection→
50 cm · every painting hung to scale
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Coverage
In the press
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