Date: Friday 26 November 2021 at 4.00pm

Place: Agial Art Gallery, 63 Abdul Aziz street, Hamra

Registration: (78) 959670 ; visites@agendaculturel.com

Duration: 1h00

Language: English, french and arabic

The visit is free of charge.

The number of visitors will be limited so booking is required.

Face masks are required.

The tour will be guided by the artist

In a reality on the edge of precipice, 

In a point, structure and rhythm away from the world 

In a present where you ask your eyes to ask again, 

Where the depth of senses meet down to the the deepest instincts, 

Mazen Rifai’s paintings begins; 

It starts with a place; 

More specifically in a scenic house, around twin homes, where it cleaves the presumed and imaginary paths that cross so lightly- almost as though they’re not paths- unintentionally coming undone, stripped of any additions, like a whim for a chisel to carve in stone, so gently, so deliberately, so strikingly. 

Not all abysses a peak, not all passion seizes the eye, but that who fascinates in how it captivates, breathing reverence for the artistry of a dream, a contemplation, a unity, in hues of emotions, with no boundaries on the outskirts of any color; an ability to discover what was in no way anticipated, but make of it the sap. 

An expression of a forgotten worldview, into the highest aspirations of relating to reality, with no intention; the painting moves with no purpose but itself. In becoming it keeps becoming, the essence of its full self.

Initially in service of the beauty unfolding from a place, into a feeling of devotion to a space, the painting lingers here to take in the sentiment, the rhythm, the pace and shape… The symphony and song, with music loud and long. 

And in the midst of it all, the painting recklessly abandons itself to what is,

With no presumption 

no pretense 

Only to find its orbit, space, place and color. 

This is the state of a Sufi in love, 

Carrying more meaning than space 

relieving a shared romance 

as a self possessing realist 

capable of fulfilling desires

instinctively  

dazed by the callings of a heart,

sated with scent rather than nectar,

the state of a hedonist pleased by scenic splendors,

Like unkempt grass, with no preordained notion, line or premises, following its joy as it takes it on its way