John Jurayj

Turin, Alberto Peola Gallery, No Paradises, 2011

Condition: This work is in very good condition. Colours: The colours in the catalogue illustration are accurate; however the overall tonality is darker grey in the original work.
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John Jurayj is an emerging Lebanese-American artist, whose works are directly inspired by his war-torn homeland. Jurayj’s work often utilises the devastated landscapes of Beirut and its demolished architecture, layering skeletal structures with smears and smudges of garishly neon paint. His use of pop or neon colours and reflective surfaces entice the viewer, confronting them with the uncomfortable dance of aesthetics and violence. 

In Untitled (Purple Diptych #10), Jurayj presents beauty and overwhelming destruction within the same frame; the delicate, yet bold contract between the two results in an intriguing equilibrium representative of Beirut and Jurayj’s personal life. For this body of work and this piece the photographic image is appropriated from press archives on the Lebanese Civil War.  The burn holes seem to mimic shrapnel wounds or bullet holes, piercing the skin of the photograph.  Colored mirrored Plexiglas continues the spatial and visual disruption. The range of colours in this body of work is determined by the industrial production of the Plexiglas mirror used, which is manufactured in a wide spectrum of “pop” hues. Further, the piece blurs the formal (and possibly outmoded) boundaries between photograph, drawing, painting and sculpture; manifesting an exiled state.  Jurayj has stated, "My interest is to crack or shatter the image, to disrupt its accepted passivity. Thus the holes, the mirrors, the turning the image on its side into a Rorschach, the negative inversion of the original image, are all strategies of rupture and recuperation to activate that which has become passive. These actions introduce radical subjectivity (locating the self and its contingencies) into a field that is masquerading as objective or fact."

Jurayj tackles a wide range of topics via his work, specifically the impact of his cultural heritage and turbulent political background upon his identity. He explores his experiences as an Arab-American artist, straddling vast cultural and continental divides.  Notions of nationalism, exile, familial expectations, trauma and the fluidity of personal identity are fundamental to his practice. His artworks are consequently a complex narrative of the interwoven relationship between the Arab world and the West.