Bashir Makhoul: Hold
August 7 - Sept 7

Press Release

Hold is a major new exhibition of installations and large-scale digital photographs by Galilee-born, British-based artist Bashir Makhoul. Exploring issues of ownership and possession, the exhibition marks a further development of Makhoul's work from painting into gallery installations and digital imagery.

Who the Fuck are you, one of two new video installations commissioned for the exhibition, deals with the over-riding desire to belong to a group of people. Video images of indiscernible faces are juxtaposed with an insistent mantra-style soundtrack to explore the ambiguity of our understanding of who we are.

Thirst, meanwhile, examines water as a symbol of power, the source of life and its use as an instrument or torture. Droplets of water fall onto a submerged video image of a face, whilst cacophonous blasts of sound intermittently pepper the work.

The photographs in Who's who are constructed as a series of bold and repetitious patterns drawn from microscopic enlargements of sand, earth, blood water and flesh. The use of such evocative and elemental materials questions claims as to the literal and symbolic possession of an object. The work takes on a particular resonance when viewed within the context of Makhoul's "homeland", a place where these building blocks of life become defining and disputed commodities.

Makhoul is well known for combining western modernist traditions with Middle Eastern influences. The overt political overtones of his early work, using colours drawn from the Palestinian flag, have been replaced in more recent work by a concern for issues of contemporary an paretic.And cultural identity.

Hold is accompanied by a full colour catalogue edited by Claire Slattery , curator of Leeds Metropolitan University Gallery and featuring contributions from Lewis Biggs. Sean Cubbitt and Walid Sadek.

Recent Works: Catalogue essay by Sean Cubitt, Leeds Metropolitan Gallery, 1998