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Simone fattal
About the Artist
Simone Fattal (b. 1942, Damascus, Syria) lives and works in Paris. Her practice integrates visual culture, textual language, folklore and different materials to engage in dialogues surrounding displacement and the concept of home.
Fattal spent her youth between her family home in Damascus and her boarding school in Beirut, where she first studied philosophy. She furthered her studies in philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris, laying the groundwork for her intellectual pursuits. She began her career as a publisher with an interest in promoting women’s literature and amplifying female voices.
In 1982, Fattal founded the Post-Apollo Press in Sausalito, California; the publishing house’s inaugural publication was the English translation of Sitt Marie Rose, the novel by her partner, Etel Adnan. At the start of her artistic career, Fattal predominantly worked in paint. However, the courses she followed in California in 1988 inspired her almost immediately to adopt clay as her primary material. As Adnan observed in her chapter 'Simone Fattal, Ceramic Sculptor' in Simone Fattal: Sculptures, (2004) , ‘She digs out of clay the possibilities of life. She gives to voiceless earth a voice, a personality and a soul.’
Fattal’s sculptures, drawing upon Sufi poetry, mythology and anthropology, appear timeless. Her pieces are manifested in the contemporary, physical world, yet are spiritually connected to history and traditions that are centuries old. Fattal’s use of earth-based materials – terracotta, stoneware and clay – is especially poignant and makes a link with nature. When creating her works, these materials become malleable and fragile: her art is formed from the earth itself.
Simone Fattal, Paris, Rue Madame, 2003. Photo by Kathleen Weaver.
Courtesy the artist and Kaufmann Repetto.
WORKS IN THE COLLECTION
Simone Fattal, "Djinn and Zhat El Himma (3)", 2010
Glazed terracotta, 30 x 13.5 x 6.5 cm
Courtesy of the artist and kaufmann repetto Milan / New York
Photo: Doury
Djinn and Zhat El Himma reflects Fattal’s study of epic narratives and the ways in which she draws from the ancient world to speak about current times. Zhat El Himma is a tale of Arabic literature likely to be contemporaneous with Scheherazade’s famed One Thousand and One Nights. A female djinn falls in love with the story’s heroine, Delhemma, and attaches herself to Delhemma until her death. The two bodies in Fattal’s sculpture mirror this constant entanglement. The dynamics of partnership in navigating the world are a key concern expressed by Fattal in her work.
Simone Fattal, "Horseman", 2019
Glazed stoneware, 30 x 26 x 35 cm
Courtesy of the artist and kaufmann repetto Milan / New York
Photo: Andrea Rossetti
Horseman (2019) is a testament to Adnan's oeuvre. The artist brings folkloric archetypes into the physical realm of the present day. The form is recognisable figuratively as a historical or mythological protagonist despite its abstraction. Her ability to convey narrative nuance in a small amount of clay results in a work exemplifying both humility and heroism.