text_oltremare inglese - barbara nahmad
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text_oltremare
BETWEEN ONE SEA AND ANOTHER
Giuseppe Frangi, June 2022
And off we set, heading north without a moment’s hesitation, merit of an attraction that stands against the constraints of destiny. We are off. First Milan, then a mandatory stop in Lugano and then on towards Lake Constance. From there we take long galloping strides across Germany. Once in Dresden, another leap in the direction of Danzig. Here we find the much coveted Baltic Sea, a sea of tension that is always battling with the light. A sea of iron, called upon to reflect the legendary Polish proletariat that changed the course of history at the end of the 1900s, a feature of Wajda’s marvellous films. The sea stretches out before our eyes with its subtle charm. “Sehnsuchts landschaft”, as the Germans say. A landscape over which yearnings and desires hover. Little by little, moving up the coastline, the complications of history multiply. Current times are bringing them to the fore once again: Kaliningrad oblast, the Russian exclave is physically cut off from the country of which it had become a part following its annexation in 1945. Kaliningrad, before taking the name of Michail Ivanovič Kalinin, a Bolshevik hero, and head of state of the Soviet Union, was formally known as Königsberg in German as it had once been part of East Prussia. It has also been Królewiec for the Poles, Karaliaučius for the Lithuanians, and Kenigsberg for the Yiddish communities.
Today, these names only give the illusion of a melting pot as the territory has since become caged in new steel curtains, a frightening point of conflict between global powers. It is important to understand what attracts Barbara Nahmad to a course so different to her roots. Her life history features other seas, in particular the Mediterranean, which her parents crossed when forced to flee Egypt where they were born. A warm sea, warm because of its latitude coordinates and warm for the fires that history has continuously lit here as well. A sea that has conveyed the magnitude of sand and the warmth of memory, that finds its mark in her most famous of works, the cycle aptly named "Eden". It is represented at the exhibition by the statement piece: Castello di sabbia (“Sandcastle”).
Despite this, Barbara's compass at times points unwaveringly North. She has no doubt about turning her back and moving north to the 59th parallel and beyond. It is a north with no trade-off, which through her paintings expresses itself in its entirety on the canvas. The artist uses only the essentials. Earth and sky touch and mirror each other, with the only difference from one work to the other, being the inclusion of clouds or the ripple of water. We can imagine Barbara as Friedrich's wanderer, looking out over that spectacle of nature that, due to its vastness and intensity, takes your breath away. We do not see her, but we know she is there, facing the sea, with nothing standing in the way of her gaze. It is an implied and unstated perspective. There are no views of the sea, but views "in" the sea. There is no beach, nor rock offering a foothold or a space to guarantee an external position to the viewer. The sea, there in the North, is psychologically all-embracing. The work’s title Oltremare (“Overseas”) invites us to consider what lies on the other side. Merriam-Webster’s definition of ‘overseas’ is “situated, originating in, or relating to lands beyond the sea”. Yet, when we talk about these works, what type of lands should we expect?
None in fact. Water and sky seem to hinge together in a kind of self-sufficiency that makes you lose ground, metaphorically speaking. With no points of reference, it is hard to imagine another shore. The "beyond" should probably be interpreted differently. It suggests an "extremism" of the sea. A self-presentation as an entity that cannot be confined, like an optic canal that knows no bounds and is infinite. It is precisely this framing, used consistently every time, that guides us towards this interpretation. The journey North has therefore swept away all interference and has removed any temptation to make concessions to vedute painting. I must add that the choice to sometimes exhibit the paintings of Oltremare unhung on walls and instead leaning against logs of wood (homely elements that also accompany the working process in the studio), forces us as onlookers to face an "up close and personal" with the sea. We, too, come up against that expanse of water and are asked to imagine ourselves not in front of but "inside" the picture.
There is of course another constant in these works that defines them not only visually but also psychologically. Let's go back to imagining Barbara in front of the waters of the Baltic Sea, smooth as the blade of a knife. She has neither a canvas nor brushes with her, because the work that awaits her has yet to be processed both emotionally and mentally. However, as with the framing, the choice of viewpoint is also precise and calculated. Whenever the sun appears, Barbara always chooses to place it behind her. The only exception to this is L’oro sull’acqua (“Gold on the water"), but in this instance the sun is neutralised by a slightly sidereal sunset that is distant and somewhat weakened by the onset of darkness. In all her other works, in the partition of space between sea and sky, the sun, at most, reveals itself in a reflection, lighting up the cloud formations with splinters of light. Barbara's North is a truly all-encompassing experience because it also leads us to hold our gaze in that direction.
A myriad of intertextual references to Oltremare can be identified. For me, the wonderful pages of Joseph Conrad’s (who, incidentally, was born in Poland and whose real name was Józef Korzeniowski) The Shadow Line, spring to mind with its bewitched sea, constantly at an impasse. Although a southern sea, it is similarly indifferent to the dimension of time.
Recurring to literary evocations however, risks knocking us off course, because, as we have already seen, the decisive element in these works by Barbara Nahmad is psychological. This psychological component is complementary and in opposition to the narrative constituent which the "Eden" cycle retains. We find it in another work on show at the exhibition that acts as a spin-off: L’epoca e i lupi, (“The era and wolves”). This work was inspired by an image that went viral during lockdown, set on a beach that in this historical moment appears as a desert. In Oltremare we are presented with sequential compositions that from time to time show variations in atmosphere and light that are sometimes disruptive and yet never undermine the basic structure of the composition. Barbara makes public her commitment to a romantic vision of nature and the world, but then she regulates it by placing it under the control of a system from which she rightly does not waiver. The system is so structured that sometimes one has the feeling that the works can progress almost automatically. This occurs with the series of small paintings that are above all governed by the implicit inflexibility of the square format. This format harnesses an instinctive tendency towards views set out horizontally. The installation with the pile of small canvases kept covered but all painted (this is apparent from the drips on the sides of the canvases), almost evokes a conjuring process that transfers the vision of the north and ingrains it into the paint, sealing itself however, within a predefined space.
The result is that of a cycle marked by a continual and uncanny commuting between dimensions of panic and abstraction. The sea and the sky steal the show, outpouring all their magnitude onto the canvas, but then the mass of water, air and clouds are aligned according to correlations that are all in the artist's head. They are fluid and pliable correlations regulated by a mechanism of free mental arrangements on which visual experience is always based. It is precisely these geometrical arrangements that from the start dictate the direction of a viewer’s gaze and eliminate everything that is superfluous so that the eye doesn’t become distracted.
It is never down to artists to be open about their choices (also because very often they are unaware themselves and this is a good thing for us and them). That said, Barbara Nahmad meets us half-way by providing us with some clues. The work in question is L’estremo confine (“ The far border”), a view of a sea, taut like a sheet of iron, dominated by a lit sky instead of a completely asymmetrical whiteness. It is from the sky that the lead of a sounding hangs down. It is not painted but real. This is an object that for Barbara Nahmad is of sentimental and nostalgic value because she had found it on a beach in Sicily when she was a little girl. Her father then patiently repaired it and got it back in working order. By entrusting it to one of her paintings, the artist basically deprives herself of it, and turns it into an omen. The sounding tells us that the Oltremare cycle was born out of a desire to explore the depths of a mystery. Its lead indicates the line of the horizon, that precise, sharp, almost abstract demarcation that separates sea and sky. This is the point of origin for the images, the magnet that sucks Barbara towards this North. In Oltremare there is no land to dock at, but a mystery to explore. Thanks to the experience of painting, we can try to familiarise ourselves with it.