Untitled (Noura14)
1999 - Present
Description
A woman stands slightly right of centre in the foreground, holding a shovel at her side, and looks back over her shoulder to meet the viewer directly. She wears a long dark coat and a light head covering that frames her face.
Behind her, a clothesline hung with white linen crosses the middle distance. Beyond it are loosely drawn trees and a clouded sky.
The picture is greyscale throughout apart from two red flowers at the right, which are the only colour in the frame.
She is caught mid-work and turns to be seen doing it, the shovel still in her hand. The laundry behind her keeps the scene domestic while the tool does not. 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. SUBJECT NOTE The woman holds a shovel and is turned mid-task. What she is doing should be recorded from the artist rather than inferred. Automated inspection read the setting as a working-class domestic scene, possibly a garden or yard. That framing is an assumption and has not been adopted in the description, which records only the clothesline, trees, and sky that are visible. Given the wider context of this collection, the activity may carry a meaning that a general reading would miss entirely. Worth asking directly and recording her words. MATERIAL ASSESSMENT Unresolved and recorded as unconfirmed. Automated inspection suggested graphite or charcoal with selective hand-colouring. Automated medium identification has been wrong repeatedly across this collection. SELECTIVE COLOUR The two red flowers at the right are the only colour in an otherwise greyscale image. This device recurs throughout the collection and must be preserved in reproduction. No filters or colour correction. SIGNATURE Present lower left in cursive. Not transcribed. Automated reading returned Nema Al Qazzia, which is wrong. The typeset name on the Heaven series title plate reads Noura Al Qasasia. SOURCE FILE Noura14.JPG, 3210 x 4160 px, aspect ratio only. Physical dimensions unknown.
