Side convo with Carla Habib
From the opening night of Side Conversations by Carla Habib at Zalfa Halabi Art Gallery, Tabaris, Beirut.
Can you explain why you used the specific colors palette?
It was a chance encounter, I was looking for a certain pink on a cool Sunday and I couldn't get the right one no matter what colors I mixed. I couldn't wait another day to start the painting so instead, I tried a fluorescent tube I had. It turned out to be exactly the shade I wanted. And since I use my iPad to look at references, I realized digital colors were bright and not just light, and the equivalent to that in painting turned out to be fluorescent colors.
I also think the explosion of rainbow colors came out after years of doing mostly black & white drawings with a limited palette. This change from neutral to colors evoked in me childhood memories, flashbacks from the 90s, living in the digital era etc.. That is why I believe that now is the time to contemplate on the 90s and 00s. To look back on the early days of the internet and all things digital and how that impacted our perception of reality. When the first camera was brought to life and became accessible to artists, what it meant for painting was that the brush stroke was liberated and that is how “expressionism” as a movement was born. With the birth of the phone camera, something along the same lines happened and I am trying to figure out what that is exactly with “Side Conversations.”
Can you tell me about the characters in the paintings? Who are they and why did you choose them?
I had in mind to portray my closest friends, and people that I felt comfortable enough approaching to get close ups and intimate moments. I had in mind to re-paint portraits from digital images, kind of flipping the idea of mass consumption on its head. Nowadays, you can reshare an image so many times that you forget it’s actually just an image. So I wanted to re-anchor this idea of looking at an image through painting.
It all started at a dinner party I was invited to, an only women's valentine's night at a dear friend’s place. As soon as I arrived I was showered with love and they took photos of me. The rest of the night was spent pausing and laughing and dancing and I was lucky to get beautiful shots of my friends but also incredible women I had just met. I started the series with those and it set the tone for the whole series.. There are a few body shots of some really close male friends too. My family is in there as well... It is quite personal as you can see, and it was my intention also to create something relatable out of something personal.
Can you tell me what is the meaning of the work or the themes?
Being on social media all the time, I always wonder if it’s good or bad for me. I don’t have concrete answers but I always ask myself: am I being inspired or crushed? Am I being myself or am I performing? What’s the value of what I put out there? Why are there so many ways to stalk people? How do you make a living out of it? Is it making us happier or are we stuck in a loop of immediate gratification? Do we make content out of our lives or do we live to make content? What happens after you’ve had your 15 mins of fame? Is icon culture an American invention? What are they doing with this data? Who are “they”? Is it considered an addiction, medically? What do you care more about, your self or your image? Are perverts having the most glorious times of their lives or are women free to objectify themselves? Is everything I want to be based on what I see there? Is it necessary for my career? Are we multifaceted or are we dissociated? Are you a watcher or do you enjoy being watched? How does it make you feel?
Can you tell me about the process and materials and mediums used?
It became kind of a slow process of not "making a mistake" and "keeping it clean." As I am working in a particular style called “hyperrealism,” it demands meticulousness and a lot of patience. I work with acrylic paint mainly, which is fast drying and is difficult to achieve the realistic effect with. To me working with this medium became a meditative process, which contrary to image making (snapping pictures I mean) has become so easy and definitely almost intuitive rather than thought of and well planned.
