Dima Hajjar

: Tony Farrage

Photo

Born in Beirut in 1968, Dima Hajjar was awarded a Fine Art honours degree from the Lebanese American University in 1995. She held two solo exhibitions in Beirut in 1999 and 2004, and has participated in many collective exhibitions – in London, Stockholm, Ottawa-Hull, Paris, Dakar, Beirut, Frankfurt, Cameroon and New York. Her artwork was primed by Harvest (Beirut ‘95), “The International Millennium Painting Competition” (London, 2000). She was offered the “Laurier d’Honneur” by the

State of Lebanon and won a silver medal at The IVth Jeux de la francophonie (2001) in Canada, and the prize of the jury at the “XXIVth Salon d’Automne” of Sursock Museum, Beirut (2003). “Hajjar integrates the objects of a technological fetishism: high precision objects derisively worn as trinkets, or forming the totality of her human figures’ ridiculous get-up. She also alludes in an off-hand way to the tradition of ‘vanities’ – not with objects symbolising the senses, but with a reliquary of technology’s gadgety left-overs. The cult of technology is seen through its gadgets, which resemble relics more than images or icons, and thus it can be compared to a cult of the dead. Does Hajjar announce the death of technology while dwelling on its remains, like a necromancer, in a bid to make them ‘speak’?” Jacques Aswad

Peu d’eau, mixed media on canvas, 175 x 130 cm, 2000 Front cover: Beach II, mixed media on canvas, 160 x 135 cm, 2000

Winter Tree V, mixed media on canvas, 130 x 210 cms, 2000-2001