Exhibitions | "Cocoon"

"Cocoon"

 

Walid El Masri’s exhibition “Cocoon” is part of a series he has been working on since 2012, in which he analyzes a single subject through the use of repetition. Repetition holds great significance to El Masri as he uses it to dive into a deeper meaning, allowing one to understand a subject in its abstracted value beyond its original interpretation.

His works are semi-abstract representations of the silk woven cocoons created by larvae as they prepare for their rebirth. El Masri’s paintings stand to represent three states of time:

the past - the larvae, the present - the cocoons and the unknown future. The future holds a harsh dichotomy of life and death: a butterfly could emerge from the cocoon in a successful rebirth or it could get trapped within the cocoon and die. Moreover, these paintings represent El Masri’s vision of Syria, his homeland, and the conflict surrounding it.