Sara Badr: a secondary cycle
Beirut, February 5, 1999
Sara Badr presents at the CCF, and until February 26, an installation entitled “Invisible Circuit”. Embedded in boxes, eleven mixed-media, which constitute a biographical journey.
“These are different stages of a life, the story of an evolution, where everyone can recognize themselves”, says the artist. Fetal position, birth, development of the body, identity crisis. Abstract canvases where painting mixes with gold leaves, tree branches, metal pieces or even mirrors, to involve the visitor more.
Most of the diptych paintings are numbered from one … to zero. “The eleventh is numbered zero because it is related to the first canvas and closes the loop”, specifies Sara Badr. “There is a continuation, then a continuation to the continuation, to infinity.”
Graphic designer by trade, she explains that “in graphic design, I cannot translate my moods. I create projects respecting the directives or the wishes of the clients”, she says. “I think that’s what made me want to let go of what I had in me, to show what I do. I write and I paint, she continues. For my installation, I have wanted to mix the two. ”
Thus, poetic or philosophical reflections are hidden in the paintings. To read them, you have to look through a peephole. There is one on every canvas, you just have to find it. you have to lean or perch on a stone; it depends on where the metal eyecup has been placed. The course ends in a cubic room. There, you no longer need to stick your eye to the peephole. The text is clearly visible on a mirror that spans an entire wall.
Sara Badr specifies that “the texts were not written for these paintings.” If I associated them with the paintings, it is that somewhere they echoed each other. ”
“I initially thought about putting the texts on the painting, and then I chose to hide them, Sara Badr points out, so that people don’t have to see them, but choose to do so. It’s like in a street: if you want to see what is behind a facade, to look inside a house, you have to ring the doorbell”.
For Sara Badr, the idea of the peephole, symbol of the eye, “came naturally to me. I think the eye is the best way to access someone’s ‘inside’, she says.
The visitor is thus invited to get involved in this “Invisible Circuit”. Like what, interactive art is give and take.
