Nadine Faraj : Playing with Fire
McBride Contemporain is proud to present Playing with Fire, the second solo exhibition by Canadian artist Nadine Faraj at the gallery. In this exhibition, Faraj continues her extraordinary delving into an exuberant and emancipatory kind of visionary imagery, exploring themes such as mortality and renewal, our primal human incandescence. This profound point of view, or revelation, is accomplished through Faraj’s consummate skill in watercolour technique, both materially and spectrally. Her colour palette retains and expands its repertoire of mesmerizing accents and effects, in particular giving warmth and breath to her celebration of Queer people, femininity and inclusive feminism, and the strength and resilience of marginalized peoples, in all times and places.
At the heart of Playing with Fire, Faraj has constructed a large-scale paper painted cave, proposing an unusual and engrossing fusion of 2D and 3D practices, and echoing the caves filled with ancient paintings and artworks found throughout the world. Through this ambitious installation, the artist engages with Mesopotamian mythologies, activating resonances with a land her ancestors inhabited for centuries. She reimagines how her ancestors visited and employed such a natural and cultural dwelling, infused with a powerful Queer and Femme magic, a place where her progenitors would practice and expand their spirituality beyond the confines of organized religion. There is mystique and mystery there, but there is also the empowerment of historically underrepresented identities. Life, death, birth and rebirth are pictured in spiritual conflagration. The artist metaphorically “plays with fire” both in its representation, and in the sense that she risks and provokes the ire of the conservative, and likewise ancient powers that rise up to prevent the energies that she centers from taking their rightful place in the order of things. The suite of framed drawings that accompany the cave in this show employ their intense imagery to shine a light into the darkness of our cultural cave, to unify us all in acts of love, hope, and creation.
Nadine Faraj lives and works in Montreal and holds an MFA from New York's School of Visual Arts (2015) and a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal (2002). Her work has been exhibited in prestigious venues across major cities such as New York, Montreal, Toronto, Mexico City, London, Athens, and Dubai. Faraj's distinctive style has garnered significant attention over the years and has been featured in prominent publications such as Hyperallergic, Wallpaper Magazine, A Women’s Thing Magazine (cover), Huffington Post, Arte Fuse, and Vulture. She is also represented by Anna Zorina Gallery, in New York, and collaborates with Guts Gallery in London.
