Ahead of the artist’s second presentation at Ben Brown Fine Arts in Hong Kong, which showcases his latest works inspired by allover patterns, colorfilled corals and what he calls “sea stars,” Nahas sat down with ArtAsiaPacific to discuss geometry, nature and the revenge of texture.
"The sea star pattern is present in the background of my fractal works. The very first paintings were made using real starfish, but I was concerned about the perpetuity of the material and soon realized that I could cast the inflected surfaces in acrylic paint. Arabesque geometry is derived from nature, and the five-pointed sea star that forms a pentagon is the basic pattern of arabesque geometry. As the paintings developed, it almost became an abstract entity—their crawling and creeping and destructive nature giving way to a more celestial reading. Later on, the inflected monochromatic surface became a base for colorful, encrusted brushstrokes, which organized into fractal patterns, obliterating the underlying stars."
