Landscape is an important marker in Adnan’s work, intrinsically linked to her travels and homes in different parts of the world. The earth, sea, light and shadows of Beirut, France, California are refined and distilled down into geometric shapes. Shaped loosely with a palette knife on intimate canvases, her paintings create vibrant fields of colour that emanate both an intense energy and a sense of tranquillity.
While her prose is visceral, highly politicised and reflective of the chaotic, what Adnan’s paintings reveal is her spiritual engagement with her environment, realising a much more sensory experience and honest, inherently personal appreciation for the world. As she stated in a 2012 article in The Paris Review, her works are purposefully sparse and portray a calming disposition. They are a reflection of ’...the happiness to just be’.
However, perhaps it is this relationship between her writing and her art that gives the paintings their additional depth. By knowing of the confronting, brutal nature of her writing, one imbues Adnan’s serene paintings with these stark realities. But they are not simply peaceful pictures of escapism; rather they highlight how Adnan sees beauty and love in a world full of turmoil.
