Random Urbis

AL M Gallery presents an exhibition of one of the most talented Kuwaiti artist
Fadhel Sulaiman Al Abbar.

Fadhel Al Abbar is an artist well known for his large-scale wooden sculptures and
powerful, expressive style in paintings and drawings in many occasions and numerous
exhibitions has demonstrated his artistic potential in different fields such as music,
landscape architecture, bronze, stone and ice sculptures. His long artistic career makes
him an important historical figure of Kuwaiti art scene.

He loved art since his childhood, he started to hand craft in very young age. The first
and main impact that signed his long contract with art is happened in 1960 when he was
a student of high school in Shuwaikh. In one of the hand craft classes he made several
wooden sculptures of birds and some of them were exhibited at school for the whole
year. Others sculptures were used as examples in various schools in Kuwait. Later in
1964 he traveled to the U.SA to study engineering, but it was only beginning of his art
formation in the USA and then in Holland for many years, where he held several
successful exhibitions and received many positive reveiws.

Exhibition RANDOM URBIS – is a visual transformation of Kuwaiti urban landscapes and
local places in unusual prospective. The city we live, the mosque we see passing in
the car, old streets we walking – – the world is incredibly complex and always changing,
staged as the big performance, transformed to be tell in a new story by artist as
multitude of nuanced color plays on canvases. The artist see urban space that is more
then simple concentration of buildings but composition of colorful corners, facades and
shapes.

Exhibition include 21 masterful vibrant paintings, most of them latest works as well as
some of his early works executed in 60’’’`s and 80s. If in his early works we find evident
domination of geometric construction and influence of cubism without any reference to
human presence, in his latest works we see almost lyrical and delicate reflection about
our everyday life and connection with metropolis. Smooth radiant effects on his paintings
achieved perhaps through the listening of classical music durng his work. Love for music
pushed Fadhel Al Abbar in 1978 to take piano lessons. He studied piano for two years
with the teacher Slovak pianist Pavol Kovac.

His dynamic vision of rebuilding urban space is remarkable for his individualistic
approach as a landscape architect and was applied for the projects of urban gardens
he realized for Kuwait Municipality between 1969 and 1978 and his major achievement
was the Kuwait Waterfront Project.

Metropolis we know filled with noise, traffic, concrete and technology appears in his
paintings – harmonious, calm and transcend maintaining typical vibrancy of Kuwait
neighborhood. It is not a first time when artists devoted their attention to depict a city, in
these paintings Fadhel paints an intimate story of the Man and the City. Just few figures
with long shadows in which a viewer can recognise himself.