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Review: Nabila Hilmi Retrospective Exhibition
The concept and design direction for the Nabila Hilmi Retrospective Exhibition catalogue entailed a historical survey and mapping of her trajectory as an artist. The exhibition, which took place at the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, and commissioned by Suha Shoman, covered the breadth of Nabila's work and experiments.
A contribution in the form of an exhibition review serves as the introduction to this book, alongside essays by HRH Princess Wijdan Ali and Dr. Khaled Khreiss.
Exhibition Review
"The retrospective exhibition held at the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts can only be described as a fantastical journey of discovery into the curious mind and paintings of Nabila Hilmi, an artist whose work is so vast and varied that one can at once see the student and the master.
In the entrance gallery, a small painting stands in which the artist scribbled in her own handwriting the haunting words “simply wanted to rest for a few centuries...” on a washed background of pastel colors. Displayed alongside a series of classical watercolor paintings depicting flowers, the exhibition begins with a commemoration of her life and acts as a moment of peace and tribute to Nabila the artist, the person, the daughter, and the sister.
On the second floor of the gallery, one gets to experience her inquisitive and active mind in action. Her nature series captures figures under lushgreens, her mother under a tree, her grandfather’s orange orchard in Gaza, and emotive landscapes that seem to expand into horizons. Inspired byJapanese ink drawings, her flower series are
an exercise in line and form. Her unrest with the artform is evident in the way she is able to paint the same subject repetitively, but in multiple ways, varied in color, style, and temperament.
Impressionist-style landscapes melt into abstracts and later into collage-work as one moves around the room. In these, one can see that she is an artist that embraces dualities, and can easily shift between the striking simplicity in contour drawings of figures depicting motherhood, and the complexity and layers of her collages.
Perhaps most stunning are the ink drawings that recall hieroglyphs on display at the top floor. Here, a new language emerges, and one can see a focused and patient artist engaged in continuous repetition and search for a new animated calligraphy composed of light and dark.
From classical watercolors and oil pastels, to abstract landscapes, colorful collages, and figures in oil painting, a dialogue begins to appear; thatbetween the artist and the art. A prolific writer, one can see small inscriptions alongside her paintings – a meticulous recording of her experiments and observations as she asks questions and unravels new forms.
Nabila’s work is built on the shoulders of giants, referencing techniques and styles that shift quickly from Monet to Matisse to Miro. Each painting seems to act as a tribute to the great artists who came before her, but it is clear that in her act of replicating, she is on her own quest of discovery."
