Artist Spotlight: Nour Jaouda, Gal Leshem and Emily Moore

Nour Jaouda

Whose work are you loving these days?

I’ve recently been interested in the works of Romanian artist Marion Baruch. She has this captivating approach to painting, or some would say sculpture, by playing with the notion of the ‘void’. She creates these ambiguous compositions made from discarded fabric leftovers of the textile factories in Italy. There's something so powerful and audacious about her use of negative space and the way she embraces its spiritual energy. They’re so emotionally-charged. They challenge my idea of what makes up an aesthetic experience and reinvent the conventions of pictorial representation. The removal and the absence of material becomes not a negation but rather an addition to the work. It leaves us driven to create meaning through what is absent rather than what is present.

I’ve also been delving into the beautiful and challenging poetry of Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish. The way he deals with language and the absence of home really resonates with my practice and the topics of Otherness and belonging that I’ve been addressing. He expresses ideas of the erased identity, historical amnesia and the concealed past of the Palestinian narrative.

Another artist whom I’ve been really interested in since seeing their work at David Zwirner and the Turner Prize last year is Oscar Murillo’s paintings and his ideas of borders, movement and liminal spaces. His dramatic marks and extremely physical way of painting embodies so much energy and gestural power that creates an unforgettable experience when seeing them in real life.

What book is on your nightstand?

On my nightstand there are a couple of books I’ve been reading, one of which is Yusuf Idris’s short fictional stories translated in English. He writes of everyday ordinary experiences of Egyptian families in such an intimate and colloquial style that reminds me of home. Each character re-animates the humor but also the complex politics of Cairo’s polarized and classist society. I’ve also been reading James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk! This book is such a great and relevant read. It’s a painful love story of a young black couple in Harlem. It portrays the love and tragedy experienced when one of the characters, Fonny is accused of rape. It’s so authentically written and gives you insight into the everyday racial politics in America; and although it was written almost 50 years ago, it still strongly resonates with what’s going on today.

Your practice in 5 #

# TextileArt
# Deconstruction
# Decollage
# Liminality
# Other

What’s on your mind?

Recently moving back to London from Cairo, and constantly moving from studio to studio during such unsettling times has been quite a challenge. It made me think alot about mobility, movement and transitional spaces. I started to think of my practice as one that is made up of different fragments and puzzle pieces that take form within each space it occupies. I’m becoming more fascinated with ideas of site-specificity and how my fabric compositions inhabit a space. About a year ago, I dipped this piece of fabric into pigmented plaster and have taken it with me on my travels ever since. With time, it started to crack and break into smaller fragments, leaving behind its residue everywhere it went. Slowly the plaster started to disintegrate and form shapes that fit like puzzle pieces. It revealed the kind of creative potential of deconstruction and how time can leave its mark on material and reveal its truth.

How does the body - yours and others' - influence your work?

I think I cannot escape my own body, and its authorial presence in my work. I believe that the experience of the work is dependent on our bodies’ relationship to the tactile physicality of the material. The way I fold, stitch, embroider, cut into, or suspend the works, is informed by the relationship between the physical presence of our body and the materiality of the fabric.

My cultural identity, my experiences and my memories will always weave their ways into the work, but they are forever changing and evolving. I’ve come to realise that the self is intrinsically rooted within our understanding of otherness and difference. It is within my approach and practice of craft that I start to materialise how my identity is in a constant process of becoming. It is fragmentary, incomplete and constantly moving.

Gal Leshem

Whose work are you loving these days?

My three current obsessions are Alberta Whittle, Ella Littwitz and Jumana Manna - very different artists in terms of the mediums of their practice. But what they have in common, and what I’m interested in, is a consideration of the politics of the natural world, looking at particular natural elements - Water in Alberta, Seeds in Jumanna and plants in Ella’s work - and revealing how these were - and are still - used within a politics of specific nationalistic interests. In all their work there is something very poetic that speaks of a kind of connection to these elements but also an underlying darker tone or cynicism towards that connection.

What book is on your nightstand?

I just bought a book that I was waiting to get for ages and brought it back with me from my last visit home. It’s called ‘Sacred Trees of Palestine’ by Amots Dafni, who’s an ex-botanist turned folklor researcher. It’s part of a new research I’m doing for an art piece about one specific sacred tree in he Carmel Mountain in Israel/Palestine and the politics around it. I can’t really say more at this stage :)

Your practice in 5 #

#IwishIknew

What’s on your mind?

A lot of what’s on my mind has to do with the ongoing adjustments to the new situation we’re in these last few months. While it’s not the initial shock of lockdown, there has been such a drastic shift in the way we connect to the world, meet people, have conversations - so much of that has moved online. I’m doing a couple of community-based projects at the moment so I’m very occupied with how to make up for a certain tactility that is lost, with ways of sharing a space for exchange when not being in the same room.

How does the body - yours and others' - influence your work?

I’m very occupied with what is inherited in the body, in how our sense of self and our sense of belonging are passed on to us, and our bodies in many ways hold and control these feelings. I’m obsessed with Sara Ahmed’s thinking around orientation (reading Queer Phenomenology for the third time!), the way we move about in the world, the way certain things and places are accessible to us, some sites in which we feel habitual, our bodies being “in place”, and others that don’t. Our orientation also directs us towards certain objects which in turn orient us toward Other places. It’s this desire for Otherness that actually places us exactly where we are, in our own inherent sense of place. So in my work I try to consider the viewer's body in the space, in relation to the work. As much of my work deals with the movement of people and objects along colonial, trade and migration routes - I’m thinking about the journey of the viewers when they see the work. Does the installation create possible journeys and movement or maybe a sense of being fixed in place; does the perspective shift as your body moves around the space; does it make you feel grounded or alienated? Each work invites its own consideration to these things.

Emily Moore

Whose work are you loving these days?

Over the last decade as I like to refer to this year as a decade rather than the actual 10 months it has been due to all the events that have taken place this year with the covid virus being at center stage.

I love any work that reflects nature for me nature is calming and is the source of all existence whether the work has literal reference or not. I am also draw to anything that enters the space and conversations of our current time.

I love the work of my peers who I graduated with but I also love artists like Rashid Johnson and also Danh Vo’s stunning work which is currently on show at the white cube gallery both artists responded to the lockdown.

What book is on your nightstand?

My nightstand takes the form and shape of the app Audible.

I love physical books but for me its time and it is a part of my evening routine to be read too rather than reading to myself.

But I grew up with the KJV Bible next to my bed and so that has continued till my adulthood.

Your practice in 5 #

#Wildness
#Legacy
#History
#Time
#Materiality

What’s on your mind?

Writing in my own voice from my own position of self is currently on my mind.

During the lockdown I started to write creatively for myself for the first time and I am in love with the process. I am constantly surprising myself with what I come up with.

I am dyslexic and so I always ran away from any type of writing but a Tutor encouraged me to write down my thoughts and it has really has opened and stretched my practice.