PRIZEWINNER & UNITED NATIONS STAMP
LEBANON
Rita Adaïmy
The Embrace 1999
oil on canvas 90 x 98 cm
Exhibition Catalogue No. 135

Rita Adaïmy was born in 1968, studied fine art at the Lebanese University, Beirut, and lives in Kessrouan in the north of Lebanon. Her painting shows a naked man embracing a sphere in a bare setting. The artist comments: ‘I wanted to manifest in the image of the body of a man, his contradictory physical and mental qualities: strong and weak; tender and savage. I have a deep tendency towards the sculptural and structural. The sphere is the hidden mystery. It is everything we are looking for: what we neglect to approach and are frightened to know. The scored numerical marks on the wall indicate either a countdown to destruction or a turning point towards reformation. The colours are the most natural for what I feel, between darkness and light. I do not have a style. It, like the subject, is created from my soul’.