Symphony of Visual Art
Ninth Symphony, 2018, oil on canvas, 100 x 135 cm. Courtesy of the artist.
Omar Al-Najjar is an artist known for his artistic touches that translate the sincerity of his feelings, and take the viewer on a journey of contemplation and reflection on the simple details of daily life.
Al-Najjar's paintings represent a modern view of impressionistic art, which depends on what the artist sees, as his paintings invite the viewer to look at objects and artistic images as a state of continuous movement.
Al-Najjar's paintings appear vibrant, as they embody the artist's spirit and his special view of the harmony of life. He does not rely on a set of preconceived rules in his drawing but depicts reality as it is.
Al-Najjar considers music to be one of the most beautiful and finest arts created by humans. Therefore, he dedicated a series of his paintings to music. His paintings depicted orchestra concerts in a unique style, in which each musician is embodied differently from the other in a creative moment, relying on darkly colored backgrounds of oil colors. Instead of drawing figures or machines in detail, Al-Najjar focuses on highlighting the spirit and sound of music in his drawings.
“In rounds,” 210X250 cm, oil on canvas, courtesy of the artist.
I was born in 1992 in Nablus, Palestine, and have lived in Jordan since childhood. I graduated from the University of Jordan in 2014 from the Department of Visual Arts. I grew up in an environment that loves art and creativity, and I am not the only artist in my family. My father, may God have mercy on him, was a painter and he loved art. My sister Marwais a capable artist and has a great career in art. She currently resides in Saudi Arabia. My brother Aliis an architect and visionary regarding the theoretical side of the visual arts, in addition to his profession as an architect. This environment in which I grew up had the greatest role in refining my personality on a human and artistic professional level.
My relationship with art has changed over time. In childhood, that is, from childhood to pre-university, I enjoyed developing my ability to draw, and drawing was the main thing in my life, and everything else was of secondary importance. During the university period, I became more serious about art, and other aspects that were previously hidden to me appeared, related to the technical side of art. After university, when I started publishing my artwork in various theaters, my relationship with art became more structured and complex, in terms of artistic concepts and the nature of the vision to be presented, which increased my sense of responsibility in my relationship with art.
There are two beginnings for me in art, the first beginning from childhood until after graduating from university, when I was fond of artistic visual expression, as I remember, and I do not remember a day that passed without me drawing. And the second beginning was after the age of 23, when I started producing my artwork and began to get acquainted with the concept of painting, and it became clear to me that making art is one thing, and the ability to draw is another thing, to the extent that the two concepts may never intersect in some artworks.
"Epic of black," oil on canvas, 270 x 165 cm. courtesy of the artist.
This art collection is considered one of the most important works that I produced and the closest to my heart and mind. I dealt with innovative scenes of musicians while performing their creative mission, and I was expressing what is happening during this musical performance in a visual way in terms of formation and color expression, and the reason for choosing this topic is due to my love for music and my interest in scenes that show different human gatherings. This type of human gathering is considered one of the few examples of gathering for a certain action without competition infiltrating them in any way, and this, in my opinion, is the source of the beauty of their appearance and performance.
"Meticulous," oil on canvas, 110 x 145 cm. courtesy of the artist.
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Franz Liszt's Danse Macabre, and Umm Kulthum's song "Al Qalbu Yashaqu Kulla Jameel” composed by Riyad Al-Sunbati. These are three examples from a large collection of my favorite music. As for listening to music while drawing; with the passage of time, the period that I spend in producing one work of art has increased, and it is no longer possible to listen to music during the artistic performance, because one session may extend to more than four hours over a period of one or two months, in which case the music is just a sound in the background of the artistic process and does not directly provoke feelings or lead to reactions.
I cannot choose a school specifically. In every art school there are artworks worthy of admiration and appreciation. However, I do not like the Western classical school in general, and I am not inclined to this form of visual expression. On the other hand, I find pleasure in looking at traditional, old and new Chinese and Japanese artworks, and I greatly love the various Islamic motifs. I consider them one of the most beautiful forms of artistic expression. I also love the European abstract school and respect the visual principles that it advocated.
"Audience,” oil on canvas, 170 x 95cm. courtesy of the artist.
Moments of inspiration, which may come from internal mental sources that rarely happen, or from external factors, such as a certain scene that I see provokes me to paint it.
My ambitions and future artistic projects are to continue to understand what true creativity is, and how to perform my mission as an artist as fully as possible.
