Lebanese-American artist Etel Adnan creates epiphanic oases of colour. In tapestries, on canvases, in verse and within leporellos (accordion-folded notebooks) Adnan renders the world around her with wild exuberance.
© Etel Adnan; California, 1977; Tapestry 180 x 130 cm; Courtesy the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg / Beirut
At a new multi-media Serpentine Sackler exhibition, we see the sun-scorched landscape of her native Beirut in the tapestries; yellow with jolts of red. We're shown the forest-cloaked mountainsides of Mt. Tamalpais; its ridges rendered in stacked shapes of bright colour, thickly applied. When asked to name the most important person she'd ever met, Adnan replied 'a mountain'. Nature and land are at the centre of her being: these abstract images are blazing surges of emotion. Even when drained of colour, her work teems: the ink drawings fizz with movement.
We very much enjoyed spending time with Adnan's work, especially on a rainy old Wednesday morning.
| What | Etel Adnan review |
| Where | Serpentine Sackler Gallery, West Carriage Drive , Kensington Gardens, London , W2 2AR | MAP |
| Nearest tube | Knightsbridge (underground) |
| When |
02 Jun 16 – 11 Aug 16, 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM |
| Price | £FREE |
| Website | Click here for more information |
