Mousharabiah Screens, The Perilous Journey newspapers series, 2018.
Series of nine linocuts on newsprint.
The Mousharabiah pattern is printed onto newsprint, the paper of daily news, left blank. The screen that protects from the gaze also protects from knowing. Across nine reductions, the same plate is printed in black, stark, unmediated. Each stage presses closer to what lies beyond the pattern. An attempt to break through.
From newsprint to acrylic and glass, from black ink to CMYK, the colours of mechanical reproduction, of the media image, of the news photograph. The screen migrates from fragile paper to transparent, reflective surfaces.
Mousharabiah Screens - Green, Red, Black, Pink, Orange, 2018-2022.
45 x 35 cm screenprints on acrylic or glass, mirror, mounted on steel, plywood.
Mousharabiah Screens - C, R1, R2, L1, L2, 2018-2022.
Thames-Side Studios Gallery, London, The Measure of all Things, 2022. Screenprints on acrylic sheets mounted on steel frames.
The Mousharabiah screen traditionally protects its inhabitant from the gaze of the street. To see without being seen. To hold the power of looking while remaining invisible. Its intricate geometry, arabesque lattices carved from wood, is simultaneously ornament and barrier.
Always mediating between inside and outside, between the one who sees and the one who is seen. To inhabit two worlds is to understand that every gaze has a screen, and that the screen is never neutral. The viewer, confronted with their own reflection in the mirrored surface, becomes both the one who looks and the one who is seen.
“I have always been fascinated by Mousharabiah screens, their intricate geometry, their privacy, their protection.