Composition 

Editor: Here we have Fahrelnissa Zeid’s "Composition," an acrylic painting channelling, it seems, Abstract Expressionism and maybe dating anytime within her mature period. The vibrant colors, fighting against the dominating blacks, feel energetic yet slightly chaotic to me. What strikes you when you look at it? Curator: Oh, darling, "chaotic" is just where the party starts! I see this as a garden – perhaps a dream of a garden – overgrown, bursting with life, barely contained. Zeid wasn't just flinging paint, she was conjuring an entire ecosystem. The blacks, to me, aren't dominating, but rather, they are the architecture, the structure upon which this wild floral abundance hangs. Don’t you see? Look at how they coil and reach… almost like vines. What would this garden smell like, do you think? Editor: Vines! I hadn’t thought of it that way. It felt more jarring, like shattered glass. So you are saying it is intentional? Maybe almost like a blueprint for a reality we can't see yet? As for the smell, perhaps damp earth mixed with something sweet and unknown? Curator: Precisely! It’s Zeid offering us a glimpse, a visceral sense of a hidden reality, of patterns that connect everything. I’d imagine jasmine, perhaps a hint of something feral and musky beneath that sweetness… the scent of undiscovered potential. Look at those geometric shapes lurking – what stories are they telling? Maybe they aren’t so rigid and fractured. Perhaps each block has a memory or hope trapped within. How would you unlock it? Editor: Perhaps with sunlight, or music. Or, to be honest, maybe just more time spent looking. Thanks, I would never have gotten there alone. Curator: Isn't that the delight, though? Art whispering secrets that only reveal themselves with a bit of patience and shared seeing? Now, tell me... what other secrets do you think it holds?