Art Beat: Works convey feelings of romanticism

by Hunter Ingalls, Amarillo Globe News

The paintings of Lahib Jaddo on display at Amigos Restaurant, Eighth Avenue and Polk Street, are remarkable in a number of aspects. One is the large size of most of the works. Another is the exuberance they express about the process of putting paint on a canvas. A third is the fact that all the paintings have as their primary focus an attractive feminine figure. A fourth is their mixture of familiar and exotic contexts.

Some of the exotic contexts stem from Jaddo's having grown up in Iraq. The clothing worn expresses this - but the environments around several of the figures are distinctly Southwestern. One of the paintings, "Doubt," places the figure against a background of gold-lettered Arabic text, a passage from the Quran. Jaddo's "message," especially in the larger works, is consistently one of mixtures: of reality with dreams, of tradition with freedom, of beauty with pain.

The beauty/pain context, as well as the works' aspect of self-portraiture, brings to mind the paintings of Frida Kahlo, but Jaddo's images aren't so clinical, the pain is more mental than physical, and the portraiture may be of the artist herself, her daughter, or of a model. Jaddo clearly finds pleasure in creating ebullient cascades of color. Many of the works convey the feelings of unabashed romanticism evoked, by both music and sumptuously colorful scenography, in the recent movie "Frida."

But the gaiety expressed in the happy abandon of small dancing figures in the background of "Homeless" exists in contrast to the seriousness of a larger, foreground figure. This is clearly Jaddo herself, who also appears in "Blue Butterflies" as a woman pulling open her chest to reveal a landscape to which vivid blue butterflies are drawn.

Clearly, many of these paintings have stories to tell, and the stories are complex. They are compelling for any viewer allured by feminine beauty and/or the mysteries of symbolism. What are those tiny flying sea-horses about? What thoughts are embodied in the Arabic scripts that appears so boldly in "Doubt," and elsewhere in tiny tracings? And how does Jaddo really feel about feminine attractiveness; is it an earthly burden or a heavenly gift?

Fortunately there'll be an opportunity to ask the artist about these or any other questions at her reception May 30. Jaddo, who lives in Lubbock and teaches in the Architecture Department at Texas Tech University, has scheduled her reception to coincide with the regular Final Friday "open mike" performances and readings at Amigos that night, 7-10 p.m.

Hunter Ingalls received a Golden Nail Award for support of the arts with Lost Circus gallery and performance center in 1989. His many years of experience as a teacher include faculty positions at the University of Texas at Austin and Columbia University, where he earned a doctorate in art history in 1970. He can be reached in care of the Globe-News or via e-mail at mingls@arn.net.

This story printed from the Amarillo Globe-News Online at http://www.amarillonet.com/stories/052503/fea_feelingsof.shtml