Bibi Zogbé was born in Sahel Alma, a coastal city in Lebanon, and became known throughout South America as “La pintura de flores” (the flower painter). In Femme aux fleurs (n.d.), Zogbé brings forth the mythical aspect of the female subjects in the Art Deco movement but imbues it with humility and a connectedness to nature rather than the grandiosity of industrialism. The artist also erases the male gaze from Gauguinesque primitivism, gently complimenting her sitter rather than exoticising her. The unified background alludes to Byzantine icons or other early art styles in which the holiness of the subject was emphasised by placing them on a separate plane, outside of space and time. In fact, a focus on the bust of the painted woman reminds one of the early Coptic funeral portraits of Fayum, Egypt, whose identifying characteristics were large eyes representing the soul and an eternal calmness in their expression. Zogbé’s rendering of the woman lies between symbol and human, but it is also womanhood itself: strong yet soft and humble, a rich and fertile aura, framed with blooming and thriving plants, rendered in Zogbé’s harmonious colour palette.
This is the first time the work of Bibi Zogbé is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Fadia Antar
