“Writings Plus,” an exhibition of paintings by George Merheb up at the Mark Hachem Gallery, strings together modern and ancient alphabets to create a new body of multimedia works.
Showcasing 28 paintings, the series is an expansion on a previous set, which also featured writing as the main theme, but was done only in ink.
“The one before this, ‘Writings’ had less design and was just words,” Merheb told The Daily Star. “I developed on the idea that alphabets and languages are all different but are also all connected.
“Today, when we text on a phone, we’re using a language that doesn’t exist in traditional writing - you write in a totally different way,” he added.
“The approach is different and we write using new rules, a lack of grammar and write things that only you, and maybe the person you’re sending to, can understand.
“As we go on, the language gets more jumbled and complicated,” he said. “The addition of colors adds to the chaos I’m trying to put across.”
The new paintings, mostly in black and white with flashes of gold or red, show letters jumbled together on the canvas, using tissue paper to layer calligraphy on top of each other. There are no readable words.
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The paintings also reference the Biblical myth of the Tower of Babel and draws on the ancient origins of language. The tale tells of humanity in the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating westward, where they arrive at the land of Shinar. There they build a tower tall enough to reach heaven.
God, observing their efforts, confounds their speech so that they can no longer understand each other and scatters them around the world. The tale is meant as an origin story for the many language of the world.
“The story of Babel symbolized chaos - nobody could understand the other, despite them having language and words to communicate,” he explained. “The origin of language was drawing, before letters they used to draw messages on the walls. I have combined the two.
“I’ve used Latin letters, Arabic, even some Phoenician symbols,” he added. “I’ve also used drawn symbols like the hand, because it is the hand that writes.”
Merheb is unsure if his next project will continue exploring language, feeling he has little left to say on the topic at present.
He hopes that viewers seeing his works will appreciate the similarity between the old tale of Babel and today’s muddling of language - whether it be multilinguists who blend three languages or social media users who speak in coded acronyms for brevity.
“It’s an explosion of language we’re in now,” he said. “The written language has exploded and not all of it makes sense. It’s like Babel all over again.
“Writing Plus” is up at the Mark Hachem Gallery, Mina el-Hosn, until July 10, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
