The Red One

Palestinian American artist Samia Halaby is a renowned pioneer of abstraction who came of age at a time when female abstract artists were marginalised within the then rising practice.

This striking composition of vivid red hues serves as a great introduction to Halaby’s take on visual abstraction and demonstrates her reliance on conceptual thought as opposed to literal interpretation. The intensity of the brush marks represents the way in which the viewer engages with visual stimuli – referencing how we look at things versus what we look at. Her artistic style often engages with the philosophy of aesthetics and art theory. As a result, her expansive oeuvre has gone through many phases over the course of her illustrious career. Halaby created The Red One at a point when she had abandoned shape and optimised the potentiality of space. Within her visual language, the viewer finds themselves pondering the limitless possibilities of the realm of abstraction and how it filters into reality.