Jane Gemayel discovered one day in an obscure bookstore a small gold book titled The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. Inside were 26 prose poems delivered as sermons by a fictional wise man in a faraway time and place, the book also includes drawings by Gibran.
Words are the inspiration.
From the affinity she shares with the poet’s thoughts, an abundant production is born.
For each idea promoted by the poet, a form emerges. Jane Gemayel extends her writing with disconcerting ease, while her work is the fruit of a long meditation on the world. The Black Boxes bear witness to this: these intimate boxes in which the artist meticulously collects all the substance of her work: quotations, press cuttings, notes, associations of ideas and colors. Jane Gemayel is secretive. She must wait for long, silent nights to gather these images charged with contained emotion
This choice of illustrating the writings of Kahlil Gibran is a response to the aesthetic research that Jane Gemayel bases on the depiction of the human, preferably female, body in search of an ideal beauty.
Imbued with a classical heritage that she shares with the masters who inspired her, such as Matisse and Klimt, Jane Gemayel records the movement of a body in black ink, with a sure and spontaneous line. Within the drawing, the sense of movement is rendered through the use of arabesque motifs and dense lines executed with this medium deposited with energy, in the manner of a calligrapher who fills the space before him. Black builds the full and delimits the empty. No ornamentation, no decorative effects.
The aim is to achieve a structured composition that clearly defines the position of the bodies in the space. Stylistic emphasis is more important than the rendering of nature. At times color is used in the form of flat areas of acrylic paint in bold tones: red, gold, or deep blue.
But these sacred bodies and this formal beauty convey other symbolic values where it is a question of the fragility of life and of the soul. The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran is Jane Gemayel’s bedside book. It has always been with her. She shares its ideas. The book becomes a personal thing. Who better than Jane Gemayel to narrate it?
“Speak to us ...”
Khalil Gibran The Prophet anaphore illustrated by Jane Gemayel.
A unique creation process.
Jane Gemayel’s Black Boxes bear witness to her long, meditative work process. These intimate boxes in which the artist meticulously collects all the substance of her work: quotations, press cuttings, notes, associations of ideas and colors. She must wait for long, silent nights to gather these images charged with contained emotion.