Shadi Al-Atallah: We Are Only A Temptation

Guts Gallery is excited to present We Are Only A Temptation; an online launch of five new paperworks by Shadi Al-Atallah.

In each work in We Are Only A Temptation, Al-Atallah depicts the conflicts, struggles and psychological dilemmas that arise as a result of the intimate relation between two figures. In Mankind, 2024, which was the starting point for this new series, Al-Atallah depicts two figures hanging upside down with their hands and feet bound together; their faces pulled into distorted grimaces of abject pain. This composition is a visual reference to the story of Harut and Marut; in which two angels were condemned to hang by their feet in a well in Babylonia until the Day of Judgment as punishment for being corrupted on earth. We Are Only A Temptation harnesses this narrative to grapple with ideas around shame, choice, punishment and the erotics of devotion.

Throughout each work, one can see Al-Atallah’s characteristic, scratchy suggestions of domestic furnishings. However, in this series, there is a much stronger emphasis on those domestic objects that represent the interface between the internal and external world. In We Are Only A Temptation, windows, doors and curtains become gateways that allow passage between the world of reality and the spiritual plane.

For Al-Atallah, the image of the bed is also a potent, psychological symbol. Through use, the bed becomes a portal to the nebulous, indistinct world of sleep and dreams; a personal world that is only accessible to the dreamer. In We Are Only A Temptation, Al-Atallah stages the visceral sense of powerlessness and despair at the complete inability to follow another into their dream world. Throughout the series, vigorously awake figures are depicted in violent clashes with reclining, languid somnolent figures. Here, arms grapple, hands rake and claw and legs twist and curl around exposed throats. It is as if the awake figure were attempting to physically tear the sleeping figure out of the realm of dreams.