STATEMENT
On the Edge of Beauty
Visual experience is our most pervasive and reliable source of information about the world we inhabit. Through sight we effortlessly navigate the comforting territory of our homes and neighborhoods, recognise our family and friends, do our shopping in the morning and admire the moon and stars at night. But vision is also our most common source of error, confusion and uncertainty. The visible world, as Plato observed, is never quite what it seems; even at its best, it delivers only the appearance of reality, never the thing itself. Saliha Staib’s new work explores the secrets of what is seen and unseen by the eye alone, delicately illustrating the tension between how things look and how they are or might be, walking the edgy line between the immediate and alluring beauty of the visible world and our uncertainties and doubts about our own place within it.
Staib’s abstract images, for instance, initially strike us as attractive, pleasant, even beautiful. But take a second look: why has that happy play of colour you first approached become now slightly uneasy, unbalanced, ill-defined? How has the settled form you spied a moment before now dissolved, leaving chaotic lines and textures in its place? These works organise geometric and other reassuring patterns against a pale, almost-monochrome background, creating an orderly scene that promises to reveal itself as some specific and familiar object or scene or figure – if only the viewer looks closely enough. But that promise is not finally fulfilled by vision alone: one may peer longer, look closer, think harder, but in the end it is left to each us to decide the what and why of each (seemingly) purposeful design. Like human personalities, Staib’s abstract subjects first invite and then ultimately elude definition, and abandon us – sometimes uncomfortably – to our imaginings.
Staib’s underwater figures perpetuate these themes. Or do they? What, after all, could be more ordinary and less mysterious than the pleasure of a cool underwater swim on a hot summer’s day? We first respond with a confident wave of recognition to Staib’s figures navigating through their deep fields of pool-blue: we know very well what this is! But the underwater world turns out not to be so very clear nor so very common, and it is far from very safe. A solitary and slightly ominous reality exists just beneath the surface – utterly still, strangely darkened, difficult to negotiate, and fatally dangerous. How deep is the swimmer’s dive? How far has she travelled out of reach of breath and light? Why is she here and where is she going? How good does it feel and how long can she last? These questions, of course, echo the unanswered questions in our own ordinary lives. To a point, and like us, the underwater swimmer both sees and can be seen. But the world she reveals is not transparent, and within it her voice is almost mute. Here as elsewhere, what we see is surely more than what we get.
A E Denham, D.Phil (Oxon)
EDUCATION
1997
Classical European training
1990 Studied art at l’Ecole Quai des Arts, Mulhouse (France)
AWARDS
1997 Awarded 2nd Grand Prize of the City of Altkich, Alsace, France.
1996 Awarded 3rd Grand Prize at Wittelsheim, Alsace, France.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2008 Ann Connelly Fine Art Gallery, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
2008 Grand Contemporary Art Gallery, Lafayette, Louisiana
2006 Ann Connelly Fine Art Gallery, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
2005 Grand Contemporary Art Gallery, Lafayette, Louisiana
2004 Ann Connelly Fine Art Gallery, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
2001 Ann Connelly Fine Art French Show, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Private show, Houston, Texas
2000 Private show, Houston, Texas
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2007 Selected Group Show curated by Jessrey W. Allison, Paul Mellon Collection Educator, Virginia
Museum of Fine Art, at the Saville Gallery, Cumberland, Virginia.
2006 National Juried Exhibition, September 8, 2007.
Juror: Henriette Hildisch, Assistant Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC
2005 Nation Juried Exhibition, Holter Museum of Art, Helena, Montana
Jurors: David Pagel and Polly Apfelbaum
August 12-October 31, 2005
2004 Søren-Christensen, Julia Street, New Orleans, Louisiana
2003 Ann Connelly Fine Art Gallery, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Søren-Christensen, Julia Street, New Orleans, Louisiana
2002 Ann Connelly Fine Art Gallery, Baton Rouge, Louisiana: for Of Moving Colors Production
Entre-Nous “Spring” show, Lafayette, Louisiana
Ann Connelly Fine Art Gallery, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
2000 Windy Morehead, Magazine street, New Orleans, Louisiana
Ann Connelly Fine Art Gallery, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
1999 Dixon Smiths, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
European Salon of Arts and Nature, Mulhouse, France
OTHER
2002 Of Moving colors Production (Orange) – Live painting presentation on stage.
2000 Of Moving colors Production (Green) – Live painting presentation on stage.
1999 Of Moving colors Production (Lilac and Magenta) – Live painting presentation on
stage.
