My Hell 1951

Curator: What strikes me first is the raw intensity. It’s almost violently vibrant. So many fragmented shapes clashing and converging. Editor: Indeed. We are looking at “My Hell,” an acrylic on canvas completed in 1951 by Princess Fahrelnissa Zeid. It's a key example of her engagement with abstract expressionism in the post-war period. I think it's crucial to understand her aristocratic background and exile in its making. Curator: Exile? How do you see that impacting the composition here? The sheer chaos, perhaps? Editor: Precisely. Zeid's displacement profoundly influenced her artistic language. The repetitive, intricate patterns resemble shattered mosaics, a metaphor perhaps, for a fractured identity searching for coherence amid upheaval and classism that surrounded her life, namely due to gender inequality. The choice of acrylic paint is itself a product of rapidly developing artistic technology too. Curator: That layering of geometric forms is so critical to observe and what contributes to the disorienting effect that you noted earlier. How do you interpret the color palette? Editor: Red, black, yellow – those are quite primal colours and, like many male expressionist, it may hint at a range of emotional, perhaps even visceral, experience and historical factors of the period. Curator: Interesting, and given the social context, I wonder if there is not any social critique that reflects her female view point during those turbulent times. It's like she's deconstructing everything – perception, identity, even our understanding of space – with her art. Editor: Perhaps the real revolution in her style resides less in symbolism, more in the way that that dynamism engages viewers—and its challenge of patriarchal norms. The very making and choosing the medium says everything. Curator: A "hell" indeed, not just personal, but perhaps also reflective of larger societal anxieties about power and identity. It makes it even more compelling, almost prophetic, if we think how fast artistic approaches and mediums where evolving. Editor: Absolutely. Her willingness to experiment and adopt unconventional strategies made the medium and form really revolutionary.