When I introduced Mahmud Obaidi for the first time
at the Elite Exhibition (or the exhibition of the
four held at the gallery pf plastic Arts association
in 1991), I was trying to be acquainted with his
achievements within the framework of what I call (or
what I identify) in the Iraqi art as the creative or
humane craving which render man as a representative
through his contemplating existence of being a more
expressive and creative phenomena through his
perfection. I wrote then in the exhibition guide the
following (his figures are post – humane because
they are no longer concerned with man for it has
over passed it towards animal and the rest of the
creative world .Yet, it remains humane in its
concept and his method clarifies through the
treatment of his painting).
Later on I realized I was right in my guessing while
studying his new work to introduce his personal
exhibition .I was to discover that he dose not use
his craving (tendency) in compacting the elements of
the painting (within the limit of the moment of
action) it was his general style in order to achieve
the significance of line as an important technical
element of the principal role in limiting the form
of the painting As though his attachment to it as a
humane deterrent was in order to achieved the
comprehensives of creative awareness in his artistic
to his plastic product .This attempt of separating
the appearance of the form in the face of no form
will be transformed to what is similar to the
evidence of created existence in the mind and the
art which is beyond the form or being a
representation of visualized ,i.e. in humane non
humane form if this is the right expression.
And by certain evidences all depending on the
meaning of the line as an external limit to the
outlines of forms, during his treatment of the
outlines of form he beings limiting his outlines and
ends up colorings areas surrounding other areas
(limited) .in short, the line for Mahmud Obaidi is
an outline of form transformed ultimately into areas
of form. We will find that the act of this
transformation will be achieved by the artist in the
scope of color too.
There is anther issue through which his artistic
insight is divided into stages which, in certain
cases appears as an action a relationship between
the evidence .the predawn composition is according
to the principal and not the mental perception
(representation and not phenomologie).I say that
this planned subject will be treated culture or
mental evidence according to the principal of
perspective.
The figure drawn in the painting is composed of
external appearances (deform) and other detailed
parts. All is clustered in as a new entity as if it
were in search of the meaning of the humane through
the plastic figure. The reclining woman in some of
his paintings is repeated by either her breasts or
her shoulders. Thus we are faced with evidences of
the body of the woman composted of samples or
partial slabs, we see them all as one: the body in
general and its parts through a new entity presented
by the painting. It is new birth that doesn't lie
within the scope of the visualized or non visualized
but within the scope of the composed and the
encompassed.
Once more we discover a third axis in the
composition of Mahmud Obaidi (plastic artist), an
intimate relationship which exists between an
outside space that fold the painting, and an inner
scope that covers the surface. It is an indicator of
a liner relationship. In other words the line spans
outside limit, the outline is transformed into a
form which is
now the limit between two spaces ,and to emphasize
this philosophical meaning to the line to the
meaning which we call the single dimension, the
artist will draw a frame work within the portrait
,covering its drawn subject although it was its
past. In this he is as if preparing the borderline
of the portrait and stressing the significance of
the margin between the world as an environment and
an artistic work .this game of the frames in the
language of Obaidi remains an indicator of his
indication system, it is same time a game of birth
and death, the existence (limit) not as a limit to
the form but as a mere dimension.
What calls Mahmud Obaidi to choose his composition
form the concept of line and not the color or the
tones??. And dose his artistic vision as a
contemplator to creation makes it a knowledge
theory? In fact his whole concern, while retaining
all elements of form such as color, tons…etc, can be
interpreted for his own interest as a contemplator
in the meaning of existence that is shared by all
creatures. He explains it by saying :"when I behold
an ant as any other creature clinging to the earth
,rambling here and there ,I get the feeling as
though it is contradicting my existence ".that
particular ant beheld by Mahmud ,it is turn
Mahmud,Mahmud in his turn is the ant .at the same
time they contradict each other existentially ,so
long as a space can be created between them as a
linking joint among other joints through which the
selves crisscross .
Thus we are in faced with man, the animal and the
solid as we are faced with somebody else who
different man animal and solid .however what Mahmud
was considering is to abolish himself in the other,
or the self in the "you" and not in the "he" .the
phenomenon of formulation in his art is always
characterized by the presence of the "action" as a
composition which perhaps is not.
Shaker Hassan Al-Saeid, Iraqi artist and critic
