Untitled (Heaven 10)
1999 - Present
Description
A winged child sits at the centre of a very dark field, head slightly bowed, wings spread outward. Two dark horses flank the figure, one at either side, mirroring each other and carrying ornamental tack picked out in silver-white.
The ground is close to black, with reddish-brown and deep burgundy moving through it to suggest depth. The child is rendered in pale flesh tones with cool blue accents and is the only light passage in the picture.
The composition is symmetrical and horizontal, the figure held between the two animals.
The arrangement is heraldic, a small figure formally flanked and framed, but the surrounding darkness gives no setting and no ground. What the horses are doing there, guarding or bearing or waiting, the picture does not say. Signed lower left.
Preservation Notes
PROVISIONAL. Assessment from visual inspection of a digital image only. No physical examination. Data gaps are expected on this collection and will be completed as information reaches the archive. SERIES Filename groups this with the Heaven files. NouraAlqasiaHeaven2.JPG is a title plate reading HEAVEN ABOVE THE SKY OF GAZA, very likely the series this belongs to. Worth confirming with the artist. FORMAT This is the only landscape-format file in the Heaven group, 4160 x 2120 px, roughly two to one. Every other work in the series is portrait. That may indicate a different intended presentation, a diptych panel, or a banner. Worth asking about. SUBJECT Automated inspection described the flanking animals as horses or mythological creatures and was uncertain between them. Recorded here as dark horses because that is what is visible. If they are something else, the record needs correcting. As with the other winged figures in this series, what the figure represents should be recorded from the artist rather than framed in borrowed art-historical terms. MATERIAL ASSESSMENT Automated inspection suggested pastel on dark paper. Treat as unreliable; the same tool has misidentified medium repeatedly across this collection. Recorded as unconfirmed. If the work is in fact pastel on dark paper it would be the most fragile object in the collection and would need immediate handling precautions, so this is worth resolving early rather than late. SIGNATURE Present at the lower left in cursive. Not transcribed here. Automated reading returned Neura Al Qassim, which is wrong. The typeset name on the series title plate reads Noura Al Qasasia. SOURCE FILE NouraAlqasiaHeaven10.JPG, 4160 x 2120 px, aspect ratio only. Physical dimensions unknown.
