Camille Zakharia, Canada/Lebanon
MARKINGS

Shackled by constraints imposed by society, family, tradition, religion, the government and a myriad other institutions, I have fought for my right to remain free – a freedom of my mind which I manifest in my art. I have the freedom to create from the most banal of materials, photos of white paint on black asphalt, endless combinations of patterns, mandalas, quilts and Middle Eastern rugs.

As Susan Sontag writes, “A photograph passes for incontrovertible truth that a given thing happened. The picture may distort; but there is always a presumption that something exists, or did exist, which is like what’s in the picture.”

It is from this presumption that I seek emancipation in my series “Markings”. Through the use of montage, I have rebelled against the photo medium itself, challenging its already tenuous reputation to represent reality as it is, and in so doing, I have liberated myself from the traditional photo process.

To challenge those constraints, I have used photos of innocuous paint on black asphalt in different combinations to create a geometric pattern that bears no resemblance to the original image.