Blooming Harmony (2024)

Kareem Moumina

48” x 60”

Oil on canvas

The Harmony of Birds was influenced both by the tradition of a ‘formal’ approach towards pictorial making (color, shape, compositional dynamics, spatial illusion vs. flatness, scale, imagery, and paint handling) and by Analytic Cubism, including Picasso's and Braque's playful trompe l'oeil illusionism, which creates a highly realistic illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. Also included are references to gestural lines that determine the painting surface, such as in the works of Mark Toby, such as Calligraphic Still Life No. 3  and The Grand Parade. In this work,  I present the birds either in front view or in profile, similar to how artists such as Georges Seurat positioned his figures in many of his paintings, like in Sunday Afternoon at le Grande Jatte. I introduced flat swirling patterns throughout the composition that move toward and are also reminiscent of linear movement found in various geometric painting styles of Islam. It is evolving towards a unified, decorative style that connects to the Modernist fascination with the flatness of the picture plane, found in pictorials by Rousseau, Monet, and Cezanne.

Alt-Text:

Oil painting of a flourishing scene of birds nestled within a collage of colorful flowers and dense greenery.

Kareem Moumina grew up mainly in Saudi Arabia and the Philippines, his parents' homeland. He lives and works in New York City and is currently pursuing his undergraduate career at New York University, studying Art History and Studio Arts. He was a recipient of the 2020 Jeanice H. Seaverns Art Prize at Suffield Academy, the Art Department Painting Award at the University of Miami, and the Fall 2024 Artistic Practise Award at New York University. He has exhibited his large-scale painting series titled The Four Seasons, in a solo exhibition as an undergraduate student at the annual Undergraduate Research, Creativity, and Innovation Forum (RCIF) at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. He is currently working on showcasing a collection of his works for his upcoming BFA Senior Honors exhibition at NYU's 80WSE Gallery and the Senior Thesis Exhibition at the Commons Gallery at New York University in New York City in 2025.

Artist Statement

In my experiences making paintings, the completed works often effectively bridge my conscious mind and my audience, thereby providing an evolutionary affirmation that we are not alone. My interest in creating art is rooted in my understanding that artistic creation erases the barriers between the phenomenal world and my imagination by allowing me to explore my sensory experience, my emotions, my intuitive reactions, my love of nature, my complex social relationships, and, eventually, my place in the cosmos in the imaginative worlds inside my imagination. When I am engaged in making art, I think more deeply, and time moves more slowly than at any other time in my life. My mind becomes absorbed within an ever-rotating cycle of images, ideas, memories, and perceptions that meld as I wrestle the chaotic flow of elements into a harmonious whole. My paintings provide a portal to a direct experience of the natural beauty, excellence, and energy that drives our social, intellectual, spiritual, and biological evolution.