A Soldier of Stars Description - Simone DeSousa Gallery

Exhibition Description

George Rahme
A Soldier of Stars
January 14 – February 26, 2017

Simone DeSousa Gallery is pleased to present A Soldier of Stars, a memorial to self, the working class, bucolic environments, and factory landscapes by Hamtramck based American-Lebanese artist, George Rahme.

Pocket size bottles of an artisan crafted herbal mix tagged Soldier of Stars Elixir, made in collaboration with Hedgewitch Holistics, sits next to a silk and wool blend wall piece that upholds a massive multi-carpus flaring spot. A three hour looped video of the artist cutting is projected right above. As a yogi, Rahme’s care towards consistency and stillness is present in his intricate and timely crafted techniques. Through extensive hours of meditative cutting, gluing, sawing, and listening to the sound of the Detroit, he cuts space out of factory images to retain memories. The carefully cut sparkles of welding marks juxtaposed on fabrics reminisce memories of factory workers and owners alike.

His macroscopical wall pieces are accompanied by comforting domestic objects. A humongous kaleidoscope forest of foliage, blossoms, and peacock feathers adhered to a radiant blue sky is the backdrop for a director chair with navy canvas placed next to an ornamental side table where Richard Burton’s Narrative of “The Little Prince” created on a Moog synthesizer (1974) is played into a headphone.

Although the sound element is not necessarily always there, it is always imagined. The sound of factories and the silence of forests, mountains, valleys, and heating metals. The shape resulting from the marriage of two metals is questionably a blossoming shape; it is 100% man made. Does it have a form of consciousness? The shape speaks.

Rahme’s fascination with body intelligence is framed by the notion of pain and his long term arthritic mysteries. His sensitivity towards barometric pressure and environmental shifts, experienced as stiffness and flexibility, shapes his understanding of flow and placement.

The artist’s art practice is focused on creating space through sound, paper, and objects. His visual and sonic experiences are rooted in his images and senses of Detroit. His lengthy jam sessions, large scale collages, and newly established bamboo land and former art residency in Hamtramck, Michigan, are examples of his spatial intentions.

Rahme attended the College for Creative Studies (CCS), in Detroit, and graduated with High Honors in 2007. His recent exhibitions include Detroit Biennial, (MONA) The Museum of New Art, Armada (2016), The Other Limits, Popps Packing, Hamtramck (2016), Between You and Me, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington (2016), and Please Don’t Stop Loving Me, Fred Torres Collaborations, New York (2014). In addition to his career as a visual artist, Rahme is an accomplished DJ and musician who has performed across Europe and the US and makes frequent appearances in the thriving Detroit underground scene.