Meem Gallery will present a solo exhibition titled Uninhibited that will be featuring the work of the Dubai-based Palestinian artist Jeffar Khaldi.
Presenting a number of oil paintings highlighting many of the artist’s key themes, including politics and its multitude of absurdities, Uninhibited is an exhibition exploring notions of power of both a political and sexual nature. Khaldi explores these concepts in an introspective manner, presenting photographic-like stills of memories and observations in compositions that juxtapose the real with the imagined.
Khaldi aims to capture the grip that the promise of sexual gratification has on the young recruits of ISIS who fight based on that promise in the afterlife; the power of seduction by money on men; hypocritical attitudes of sex and sexuality in present-day society; the politics of sex; and the relationship between sex and politics. Uninhibited seeks to prompt viewers to ultimately question their own notions on the subjects of power and sex.
Questions about the artist’s contemporary existence and moments of isolation within the world at large are also expressed, hinting at greater questions of being that were perhaps first formulated whilst a young child during Lebanon’s civil war, and during his subsequent immigration to the United States at the age of sixteen.
New works make up this exhibition, in addition to Khaldi’s extensive pre-existing oeuvre. The show includes works such as Happy Endings, Men’s Ruin, and Maki that highlight Khaldi’s constant melding of a fantasy dream-like state with the harshness of every day reality. Uninhibited is a show that is both narrative and expository which will allow viewers to take note of the artist’s multi-layered themes, and develop an appreciation for the intricate complexity of the artist’s conceptual ideas and aesthetic style which he melds together on canvas so fluidly.
Works by Khaldi are now part of the permanent collections of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; the Saatchi Collection, London; the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah; and the JP Morgan Chase Collection; in addition to many private art collections around the world.
