textured, an imprint in black ink on gray wove paper that was handmade at the turn of the nineteenth century. With two eyes and an open mouth, Index evokes a human visage frozen in mid-articulation, an abstracted face with spectral traces of a past being. The handmade paper comes with its own history, adding another layer of significance to the work. Similarly, aluminum, a material that is both industrial and domestic, has a memory of its own kind deriving from its endless plasticity. A flat sheet of foil becomes crinkled, profoundly impressed by the quick movement of a hand, leaving vestiges of prior action. As critic Stephanie Snyder has suggested, Kemp’s engagement with foil further deploys its metaphoric potential, using “foil as a foil, to deflect menace, to fool and outsmart violence and predatory behavior, and to protect what is most critical, vulnerable, and precious: art, queer love, blackness, rage, justice.”2 The mask is an object that incites a dialectic of looking and being looked at.3 Each act is mediated by the foil barrier, which protects, shields, obscures. A center crease from previous folding bisects Index, further instilling the work with the tension of seeing and being seen. The work’s title, Index, suggests that the piece results from a direct impression or indexical likeness of an individual’s face, but Kemp’s index goes through a series of modifications, literalizing the refiguration of a visage. The malleability of the foil elicits a feeling of precarity, as Index is ultimately a permutated imprint of experiences, inscribed histories ,and psyches. —MH 1
2 3
“Arnold J. Kemp, “Talking To The Sun” at M. LeBlanc, Chicago,” Mousse, April 20, 2022, https://www.moussemagazine.it/magazine/arnold-j-kemp-talking-tothe-sun-at-m-leblanc-chicago/. Stephanie Snyder, “Arnold Kemp: FOILING,” 2019, the website of Arnold Joseph Kemp, http://a-j-kemp.com/index.php?/texts/foiling-by-stephanie-snyder/. Masks have occupied a large part of Kemp’s practice since the 1990s. Angelica Villa, “With a Fred Flintstone Rubber Disguise, Artist Arnold Kemp Explores What Masks Really Reveal,” ARTNews, April 6, 2022, https://www.artnews.com/ art-news/artists/arnold-j-kemp-neubauer-collegium-exhibition-1234622883/.
Mohammed O. Khalil b. 1936, Burri, Khartoum, Sudan
Mohammed Omer Khalil began painting during his childhood and later graduated with a painting degree from Khartoum’s School of Fine and Applied Arts (1959). He then began teaching
43
