PORT HADLOCK — An art show will open Sunday at the Old Alcohol Plant Inn.
The reception for the show, “Mother/Land, Paintings by Hart James & Hiba Jameel,” will be from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Gallery @ OAP (Old Alcohol Plant Inn) at 310 Hadlock Bay Road.
The show will be on exhibit through Aug. 4.
James and Jameel — one brought up on a Midwest farm and one born in Baghdad during the first Gulf War — both celebrate motherhood and Mother Nature — James with her abstract landscape celebrations of Mother Earth and Jameel with her equally voluptuous paintings which become a celebration of the motherly figure, according to organizers.
Iraqi American artist Jameel triumphed over 100 international entries to win an art competition sponsored by Rapid Response Unit in the UK. Her painting, “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?,” — in which she added elements to an older painting named “The Gulf War Was a Piece of Cake” — will now be a part of the collection of the Newseum news museum in Washington D.C.
Jameel paints to heal from childhood wounds and engage others in art making via conducting interactive art events. organizers said.
She uses the traditional teacup she grew up drinking from as a symbol of her heritage and as a part of her identity.
In one of her pieces, which Jameel calls the “Amorousness of the Motherly Figure,” she deals with the complexities and the emotional depth found in the motherly figure, “embracing all the evidence of childbirth to make the audience question the beauty standards of our modern world,” organizers said.
Growing up on a farm, James absorbed the natural world around her.
“My work speaks of the energy of nature — the current of the water, the flow of the air over us, the rock formations that form the foundation under our feet and the movement of those foundations,” James said.
”The natural world is very simply alive. It is nothing to be taken for granted. It is as much a part of us as our circulatory system. As Paul Cezanne said, ‘Nature is on the inside.’”
The Gallery @ OAP is located on the second floor of the Old Alcohol Plant Inn. It is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.
For more information, call 360-390-4017 or see www.oldalcoholplant.com.
