Art2Muse

Artworks available to view in Sydney

Ghasan Saaid expresses his ideas through painting, drawing and printmaking with different materials, exploring time, space and culture through an abstract and symbolic outlet. He grew up in an African atmosphere enthused by multiculturalism and the way each group practices their everyday life, from ethnographic traditions to architecture and contemporary society. After immigrating to Australia from Khartoum, Sudan in 1998, he developed a painting style that was influenced by many cultures from around the world to be influenced by global contemporary cultures, societies and time lines.

Global Folklore, Methodology, and cultural traditions are his inspiration, as well as history and archaeology. His artwork is influenced by the creative symbols of The Maya culture, post-modern Western philosophers such as Ponty and Foucault, Native African deco-art and rhythm, Asian flat prospective, and indigenous Australian painting. He has always been concerned with the viewer’s perception and response to the artwork, so he uses the psychology of colours, line, marks and symbols in the process and the presentation of the painting which enables him to remotely control and guide the viewer’s eye and mind gradually to the concept beside the aesthetic value of the painting.

My paintings express simplicity, strength, energy and foreign forces, the longer you look, the more you observe. The layers of life are metaphors for my art, I use layers, colours, shapes, symbols and textures to create and search new realities and artistic expression.

My painting process develops by using different techniques; usually I start with washing the blank canvas and aggressively splashing colours and different mediums to let them work together creating a random structure. Then I use knives and brushes to construct shapes and textures. Once the painting has become a rich abstracted form, I start dividing the painting into cells based on my scope of vision and the over all balance of the artwork - each cell playing the role of a single painting and together interacting harmoniously to evoke an infinite number of possible meanings. Then I start revealing and concealing, building up, symbols, stories and motifs. To do so I explore the lived (or experienced) time, space and nature, then the mythological and imaginary time, space and nature. I dramatically combine and manipulate the results with issues in our contemporary time and every day practice. To achieve this in my artwork, I have to keep the formal structure of practice, beside the outsider uncanny ideas.

All these interactions intermingle with the viewer’s eye, mind and accumulated memory which makes the viewer see something different every time he looks at the painting.

Phenomenological philosophers propose that there is an ongoing unconscious negotiation between the sensory information and the human concept. So we don’t need our visual consciousness for most of our every day practice, our brain-body and mind are working perfectly with out visual conscious, our act in the world does not need visual consciousness which is because of our lived body experience of the world.
I tried to exploit this state of phenomena by:

• Presenting familiar symbols to be seen as an outsider symbols.
• Playing in the space between the logical sensory information and the viewer’s concept.
• Representing the lived or experience reality in an unfamiliar form.

To create a gap, and force the viewer out of a state of complacency, which will require the viewer to think again about the artwork to fill that temporary gap of no knowledge and full knowledge.

- Ghasan Saaid 2010

Education

2007 - 2008: Master of Studio Arts (photo-media) at Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney
University, Australia.
2003 - 2005: (distinction) Advanced Diploma of Fine Arts (Photography), Sydney
Gallery School Northern Sydney Institute of TAFE, Sydney, Australia.
1990 -1995: (First Degree) Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting), Collage of Fine and
Applied Art, Sudan University of Science and Technology. Sudan.

Selected Exhibitions

2010 Oct Glenferrie Road Contemporary Art, Malvern, Melbourn.
2010 Sep Group show, Nolan on Lovel Gallery, Katomba.NSW.
2010 Aug Solo show, State Of The Arts Gallery, Hong Kong.
2010 June Group shows, Harris Courtin Gallery, Sydney
2010 May Group Show, State of The Arts Gallery, Hong Kong.
2010 March Art Walk, State Of The Arts Gallery, Hong Kong.
2010 February Group shows, Harris Courtin Gallery, Sydney
2010 Feb Khartoum International Exhibition, Khartoum
2009 November Fairmount St Gallery, Melbourne
2009 May Group, Bonisa Private Gallery, Durban, South Africa
2009 April Group, Art Melbourne
2009 March Group, Fairmount St Gallery, Melbourne
2009 February Solo, Manyung Gallery, Mt.Eliza, Victoria
2008 June Group, Brisbane Art Festival
Post-graduation Exhibition, Exit Gallery, Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney
2008 April Group, Manyung Gallery, Mt.Eliza, Victoria
Group, Melbourne Art Festival
2007 July Solo, Harris Courtin Gallery, Sydney
2007 February Group , Together Art Centre, Khartoum, Sudan
2007 January Solo , Universal Gallery, Khartoum, Sudan
2006 December Solo (Photography) French Cultural Centre, Khartoum, Sudan
2006 February Solo , Harris Courtin Gallery, Sydney
2005 October Group (Photography). Gallery Xposure, Rozelle
2004 September Solo, Alliance Française de Khartoum
2004 Solo , Harris Courtin Gallery, Sydney
2004 February Solo , Alliance Française de Sydney
2003 June Solo , Harris Courtin Gallery, Sydney
2002 February Solo , Harris Courtin Gallery, Sydney
2001 November Solo , Alliance Française de Sydney
2000 November Solo , Harris Courtin Gallery, Sydney
2000 February Paintings and watercolours "Outsider Symbols",
Alliance Française de Sydney
1999 March - Oct Paintings "Half Light, Half Dark", Casula Powerhouse Art Centre, Casula
1999 July Winner of the Modern Abstract Painting section,
Liverpool City 13th Annual Art Prize & Exhibition
1999 May Camden Annual Art Prize, Open Section (Commended)
1999 April Paintings "Heritage: Start, Finish, Start". Parramatta Town Hall
1999 February Exhibition held by Austcare and the Rotary Club, Sydney
1997 July Group, Russian Cultural Centre, Damascus
1996 May Solo, Hilton Gallery, Khartoum
March Group, Friendship Hall Gallery, Khartoum
1995 September Group, National Museum, Sudan
1999 April Paintings "Half Light, Half Dark",
Casula Powerhouse Art Centre, Casula
1999 March Paintings "Heritage: Start, Finish, Start". Parramatta Town Hal
1997 July Group Exhibition Russian Cultural Centre, Damascus.
1996 May Solo exhibition, Hilton Gallery, Kartoum.
1996 March Group Exhibition, Friendship Hall, Gallery Khartoum.
1995 September Group Exhibition, National Museum, Sudan.

Awards

7/5/1999 Camden Art Prize (Highly Commanded); - Camden – Sydney.
July/1999 Winner of the Modern Abstract Section Liverpool Council Art Prize, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre.

Acquisitive Works & Collections

University of New South Wales (Mathematics Dept).
Casula Power House Art Centre.
Zaf Centre for Plastic Art, Istanbul.
Erivetaria Art Centre, Rome, Italy.
New Look Centre, Prague.
Kemnkensweg Gallery, Holland.
Shibrain Museum Gallery, Sudan.
National Museum Gallery, Sudan.
Balirmo Gallery, Toronto, Canada.
French Cultural Centre in Sydney, Sudan, Syria & Kenya.
Goethe Centre, Sudan and Jordan.
Alliance Française de Sydney.

Commissions available

Contact Katrina Hampton 0424809849 / +61 2 9697 3299