Respite
Respite
By Aida Rubeiz
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Artwork by Aida Rubeiz.
Mixed Media on Canvas.
68cm x 48cm (canvas), 82cm x 62cm (frame), 2011.
I will start by saying I don’t see sadness in blacks and grays. I see black, gray, and white as neutral colors that are very comforting. For instance, they are also colors I view as more appropriate for an office environment.
I made Respite shortly after relocating back to Lebanon after what seems like a lifetime of living worldwide. Respite is a collection of memories, thoughts, and feelings – a portrayal of the discontinuity between my memories of the Lebanon I left so long ago and the Lebanon I found upon my return.
The loss of people who were no longer here; the missing relationships with people who were still here; the difficulty in re-engaging in the culture I left behind; glimpses of my new "normal" - now so far away…; the desire to gather with distant friends; the cultural cuffs that restrained me from making new ones or reconnecting with old ones; the soft glow of a burning fire - its warmth… – my respite for now.
In summary, I would say the relation of “Respite” to fortitude is its depiction of the strength of the human spirit as you “reset”, reconfigure, adapt, and accept new norms and adversities in life.
About Aida Rubeiz
Aida Rubeiz has always had a keen eye for beauty – flowers, colors, materials, and the ability to see potential in what others may have left behind. Though she did not have formal training in the arts, she was gifted with the ability to rearrange things and repurpose materials into an eclectic, unique artifact. In her early twenties, she had an antique wooden wardrobe cut and rebuilt into the most unique formal sitting room, and from furnishings to gardens, she began creating her style.
As her life led her across the world - far from family, friends, and places she loved, she soon became enchanted with collage as a means of portraying her feelings, memories, and dreams into a virtual world of her own – a world she assembles one piece at a time.
Her mediums are paper and glue, but the substrate could be anything – canvas, paper, cardboard, porcelain, glass, wood, or an object with a silent meaning…. She likes to use printed material for the images—somebody’s art – to be reused in a new venue. One particular image is the seed from which, one clipping at a time, a scene evolves to merge colors, style, people, things, and memories and bring life to her collages.