Amalia Mourad

Lives and works in Munich, Germany

Artist statement

I have always been attracted to the marks that appear on the white cotton rags after cleaning my brushes or wiping away paint on a canvas. What remains from my painting process is a form of abstract mark-making absent of intention, a byproduct, so to say, completely detached from the narration or figuration from which it came. In this series, called Remnants, the act of assembling the remains grants me the ability and permission to work non-objectively, focusing solely on the form, color, and composition. Through intuition, I layer, exchange, remove, and add pieces until a certain harmony or dissonance has been found. I am interested in the juxtaposition of the gestural, action-based marks against the graphic nature of the cloth pieces - like two fighting identities, chaos and containment. Despite my initial aim, which was to work purely abstractly, the history and origin of the material inevitably provoke contemplation (relating to concepts such as waste, memory, and erasure) and consequently imbue newfound meanings into the work. Remnants prompts me to think about the lifecycle and legacy of a painting. Is a legacy the sum of our actions or can we reshape/reconstruct the meaning of what we leave behind? Can we choose how and what we remember and thus alter the significance of an experience or memory? Often, if I get stuck during the painting process, I remove paint. Earlier layers are uncovered, brushes are cleaned, or I start over. In some ways, these dirtied rags...

Artwork