VIEW IN MY ROOM
United Kingdom
Painting, Paper on Paper
Size: 11.7 W x 16.5 H x 1 D in
‘Fantasia’ is the first image in The Goddess Complex series. It was also one of the first images that Diriye started working on after a decade-long break from making art. In 2001, after being diagnosed with depression, he stopped painting and focused solely on writing, working as a journalist whilst writing fiction. ‘I felt disconnected from art,’ he says. ‘Here was this painful experience that I couldn’t express in my paintings. So I turned to writing and discovered that I had another outlet to voice this reality. Painting had always offered me the reassurance that if I created beautiful tableaus I would be fine. It was a way of balancing out the disorder in my life. But I felt visually depleted so I threw in the paint-box and moved on.’ A series of personal losses led him back to the art form he had always loved. ‘I started working on ‘Fantasia,’’ he says, ‘as a way of salting wounds. Art can be therapeutic. It took me a few months to make ‘Fantasia’ but that’s only because I was relearning the craft. As an artist, I’m no longer afraid of failure, and that only strengthens the resolve needed to make each image breathe.’ Using multi-dimensional textile and silk lining paint, acrylic, pencil colours and ink, the painting bears the hallmarks of his intricate style. ‘I’m influenced by artists like Alphonse Mucha, Klimt, Chris Ofili, Giger, Fritz Lang and Disney. But ultimately, the work is my own. This painting has a vivid, decorative energy but also a slightly sinister undercurrent. The characters resemble mannequins with no hands, an allusion to how disempowered I had been feeling when I made it.’
Painting:Paper on Paper
Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork
Size:11.7 W x 16.5 H x 1 D in
Frame:Not Framed
Ready to Hang:No
Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.
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United Kingdom
THE GODDESS COMPLEX Culturally, Diriye Osman is Somali-British. Creatively, he's an artist-writer. Born in 1983 in Mogadishu, he was encouraged as a child to draw. When the civil war broke out in Somalia, Diriye and his family fled the country for Kenya. Traumatized by the experiences of war and immigration, the then eight-year-old Diriye found refuge in art. He would spend hours in solitude creating fairytale-like fantasies. These fantasies were influenced by Disney and Miyazaki filtered through the Vogue ideal: beautiful, alien-like sylphs with stylised physiques and catwalk stances. "˜It was only after I grew up that I realized that my entire creative life had always been about repression,' says Diriye. "˜I was a gay kid growing up in a society that had no tolerance for homosexuality. I sensed this hostility and it fed into my work. The women, who were goddess-like creatures, became the acceptable, alluring face of what was a dangerous transgression.' Even after coming to terms with his own sexuality and celebrating it in his fiction, Diriye didn't change his artistic subject matter. "˜Art is about compulsion,' he says. "˜These female characters are a huge part of my identity and I relish their strange beauty. As an artist, I hope there's enough mystery, detail and joie de vivre in this ongoing series for the casual observer and the seasoned aesthete.
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