Saudi Gazette The Mexican painter Farida Kahlo once said: "I never paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality." Jeddah Art Week and Athr Gallery is presenting Ayman Yossri Daydban's solo exhibition, Give Me Light, that has spell-bound viewers with art that is real, yet abstract, with a few words and a thousand pictures. It features Daydban's new and old works spanning over 30 years of practice. The wide exhibition hall provides a soothing but spectacular ambience, with the artist's works occupying five spaces at Athr Gallery, each with a different perspective and background. Utma, darkness in Arabic, is a space that resulted from the personal experiences of the artist whereas Ihramat expresses the futility of suppressing individuality by using the white cloth worn by pilgrims on their journey to Makkah. Flag expresses the potency of artist's national flag of Palestine as a symbol of unity and identity. An eye –catching Maharem is based on Daydban's encyclopaedic knowledge of classic Arabic films, drawn on tissue boxes, that depict moments of heightened emotion and actions. The space captured by Subtitles is phenomenal, and depicts not just the picture, but the emotions still in the form of words. Along with these earlier works, Daydbhan presents White Noise, which he describes as a live performance and the first of a new body of the work The State. The work is comprised of a large room filled with nothing but salt, and poses the question: "when was the last time you listened to the crunch of your shoes walking on salt?" Daydbhan's quest to understand identity and belonging, in addition to his ability to transform and export an object from its intended function, is what make the exhibition special. Show Me Light continues this search, reinterpreting bodies of work to collectively shed light on the bigger picture: the state of the human condition.
