Sanam Khatibi
Sanam Khatibi’s (°1979, BE) works deal with animality and our primal impulses. The core of her practice interrogates our relationship to power structures, specifically the duality of triumph and failure. The recurrent motives that often feature in her work question our relation to chaos, excess, loss of control, bestiality, domination and submission. Khatibi is therefore interested in the thin border between fear and desire, and how closely they are interrelated. Her painted subjects live on their impulses in alluring, exotic landscapes, thus embodying their ambiguous relationship to power, violence, sensuality and each other. Sanam Khatibi engages with the ambivalence of juxtaposed dualities such as animal versus human, past versus present and cruelty versus seduction. Her oeuvre consists of paintings, embroideries, tapestries, sculptures and installations that navigate through the artist’s universe.
Under the influence of poison, 2018; oil and pencil on canvas, 180x230, courtesy of the artist and Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels