As I began collecting erotic magazines of naked women with Mohamad Abdouni for our collaborative project for this residency, I started looking at their bodies and thinking about how I wanted to draw them, not in an erotic way, but in a way to reconnect back to myself. After the Beirut explosion on Aug 4, 2020, the fragmented and bloodied bodies had occupied my mind, especially since I had miraculously escaped unscathed. After the flurry of moving and rebuilding activities, I felt the need to be calm, secure and whole again. Part of that process has been talking with many of my female friends who shared the experience, drawing on a daily basis, and also seeing the blue Mediterranean which has always been very calming for me. All of these elements present themselves in the project. The title of the series references a controversial Manet painting of a picnic with a naked woman and two fully dressed men laying on the grass. The opposite of objectifying, unlike many art historical references of nude female models throughout history, I relate to these figures and feel relief in their presence, reminding me of my close female friends.
