Balance, Tension and Integration
This was the first drawing I saw from Fadi Abou Hassan.
In its first version the refugee is reaching for the sun, and sadly it is just as difficult to reach Europe. The Mediterranean is implicitly there. The arm is at once personifying the preparedness to go to inhuman lengths to reach safety and the obstacles trying to get there.
In cartoon art the formal aesthetic termini have a political side to them, twisting the ideals to engage our eyes. Termini such as balance, the tension between each of the parts that constitutes the composition, and the integration of the picture plane as a whole. The exaggeration before us tells us a story, at once personal and all-encompassing.
Told through the means of tipping the balance, tension there is indeed, while striving for, but not quite reaching integration.
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| Fadi Abou Hassan, European Dream, 2013. |
The cartoon shown is courtesy of Fadi Abou Hassan and must not be reproduced without his permission.
