Habeeb Mohammed Abu-Futtaim
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Salt Bricks (2016)
20 cm (each, approx.)Salt, pigment This work is an interrogation on the fragility and artifice embedded within the constructs of identities. The work subverts the solidity, transmuting the bold, immutable forms of Arab flags into brittle, eroding fragments forged from salt—a material both elemental and ephemeral. Salt, drawn from the saline waters that cradle much of the Arab world, embodies both nourishment and decay, crystallization and dissolution. Despite this fragility, the relentless reproduction of identical forms mirrors the cyclical reinforcement of these constructs, questioning whether repetition breeds authenticity or merely sustains illusion.
In their fragmented state, these pigments and shapes are stripped of their authoritative symbolism, reduced to mere residues of color and form - revealing them not as vessels of inherent meaning, but as precarious signifiers, devoid of fixed essence, susceptible to erosion by both time and inquiry.