Taymour Grahne is delighted to announce his participation in the ninth edition of Art Genève, with a solo presentation of works by New York-based artist Nadia Ayari. The booth features a selection of deep-hued paintings and marble sculpture that explore the feeling of tension – a charged state where balance is maintained between opposing forces.

Ayari’s use of organic materials is foremost an investigation into form and physical nature. The presence of a canvas resting on metamorphic stone and sculpture displayed on an interlocked shelf, provide overt and tactile contrasts. By interjecting form into each composition, natural appearance is modified and singular components congregate, providing a new context to Ayari’s primary protagonists. Coiled leaves and knotting branches are set against visceral red and purple spaces. This narrative delves deeper into an intimate, nearly psychosexual territory, referencing the struggle for endurance and growth in times of peril.

The process of making remains hidden in the completed aspect of the paintings and sculpture, however it offers an opportunity for greater comprehension. Wet oil paint is applied layer by layer to the linen in a specific manner and direction. Various mixtures of plaster are smoothed onto marble until the fresco surface is painted in one critical sitting. It's this progressive, time-sensitive process, in which the act of making transpires so methodically, that tension builds. The precision of the booth’s display underscores the delicacy of these works while initiating a deeper dialogue with the bare structures that lie beneath the paint and plaster: metal, marble and wood - each materially unyielding to varying degrees. The divergence of these materials and the transgression of their boundaries expose the tension that holds the works together.

Ayari has had solo projects at Luce, Turin (2009), Monya Rowe, New York (2011), The Third Line, Dubai (2013), Taymour Grahne, New York (2016), Untitled, Miami Beach (2016), London (2019) and has participated in the 12th International Cairo Biennale (2010), the 3rd Thessaloniki Biennale (2011) and Art Dubai Projects (2014). Her work has also been exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery, London, and Monica DeCardenas, Zuoz, Maraya Art Center, Sharjah, Institut Du Monde Arabe, Paris, Gallery Diet, Miami, DC Moore, New York, American University Museum, Washington DC, Samson Projects, Boston, Abrons Art Center, NY, and Produce Model Gallery, Chicago.