MONKEY DRAWINGS
Tangible to In-Tangible. New work by Nahem Shoa. Article by Isobel Johnstone Curator of the Arts Council Collection 1979 - 2004
Nahem Shoa has been fascinated by Monkeys and Primates all his life and his amazing recent body of rotary pen drawings are testament to his passion. Shoa seems to be a artist who has a craving for the strange and the extreme, These drawing are disturbing, beautiful yet full of visionary character. Shoa doesn’t make these drawings from actual monkeys or other photographic media but uses a combination of memory, art history and mainly his own imagination.
Although Shoa’s series of monkey drawings may appear shocking and outrageous because of the way he has juxtaposed images of The Virgin Mary, with monkeys with huge erect penises set against the flat untouched stark white white paper. In fact Shoa’s work is profoundly inspired by great masterpieces of art and conventions from the past, like the Virgin and child theme that is one the most recognised in the Western tradition of art. Shoa was also looking at the manically intense and brilliant drawings of Matthias Grunewald (c.1470-1528) such as his Saint Dorothy and Virgin and Child, which he finds are otherworldly, full of visionary character and expressive line. Grunewald seems able in pen to elevate each bit of his drawing to emotional pitch, unparalleled in western art until Van Gogh. The Grotesque over sized phallic penises of 19th Century Japanese Shunga prints and aesthetic artist Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) Illustrations of Lysistrata of Aristophanes also had a profound influence on Shoa’s The Evolution Of Man? Drawing series.
Shoa’s masterful Rotary black pen drawings on sheets of white conservation paper are stark and simple in their beauty, which have been placed on the page so inventively, ingeniously that he is able to enliven every area and mark of each drawing composition. Shoa doesn’t use conventional tonal devices to give his figures three-dimensional form and yet each figure seems sit in its own world and carry its own light or reflect the light that emanates from an unseen source.
Monkeys with huge phallic penises, much larger than their brains, proudly act out themes that are played out by humanity, everyday in human societies all over the world. Shoa seems to be highlighting in a playful, cheeky and thoughtful way man’s lack of ability throughout history to think past his own penis and how his evolution seems to have got stuck at the monkey stage.
Although Shoa’s series of monkey drawings may appear shocking and outrageous because of the way he has juxtaposed images of The Virgin Mary, with monkeys with huge erect penises set against the flat untouched stark white white paper. In fact Shoa’s work is profoundly inspired by great masterpieces of art and conventions from the past, like the Virgin and child theme that is one the most recognised in the Western tradition of art. Shoa was also looking at the manically intense and brilliant drawings of Matthias Grunewald (c.1470-1528) such as his Saint Dorothy and Virgin and Child, which he finds are otherworldly, full of visionary character and expressive line. Grunewald seems able in pen to elevate each bit of his drawing to emotional pitch, unparalleled in western art until Van Gogh. The Grotesque over sized phallic penises of 19th Century Japanese Shunga prints and aesthetic artist Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) Illustrations of Lysistrata of Aristophanes also had a profound influence on Shoa’s The Evolution Of Man? Drawing series.
Shoa’s masterful Rotary black pen drawings on sheets of white conservation paper are stark and simple in their beauty, which have been placed on the page so inventively, ingeniously that he is able to enliven every area and mark of each drawing composition. Shoa doesn’t use conventional tonal devices to give his figures three-dimensional form and yet each figure seems sit in its own world and carry its own light or reflect the light that emanates from an unseen source.
Monkeys with huge phallic penises, much larger than their brains, proudly act out themes that are played out by humanity, everyday in human societies all over the world. Shoa seems to be highlighting in a playful, cheeky and thoughtful way man’s lack of ability throughout history to think past his own penis and how his evolution seems to have got stuck at the monkey stage.
"Monkeys with huge phallic penises, much larger than their brains, proudly act out themes that are played out by humanity,
everyday in human societies all over the world." "These are one metre-wide Rotary pen drawings in black ink on brilliant white conservation paper in which he gives license to a long-held fascination with primates."
everyday in human societies all over the world." "These are one metre-wide Rotary pen drawings in black ink on brilliant white conservation paper in which he gives license to a long-held fascination with primates."