In Shadi Al-Atallah’s big, dark, brooding paintings, you can read all the teeming symbolism of their own queer, mixed-race identity. Al-Atallah creates figurative paintings filled with tormented, sensuous figures that romp through bedrooms and hospital corridors, wrestling constantly with their bodies, minds and culture. The canvases are unprimed and hang unframed – slapdash, rough and full of seriously affecting emotion. Oh, and Shadi did the artwork for Kanye’s ‘XTCY’ single too.
Justin Hammond, Director at J Hammond Projects says: ‘Shadi does big, bold imagined self-portraits dealing with sex and death. Raw as fuck.’
September 30, 2019