This story was originally published in Vol. 34, Issue 2 (October 2023)
Artist and Portland Community College Professor of Art Zeinab Saab presents Block Party, an art installation exploring escapism through the use of vibrant, loud colors and striking designs contrasting with titles alluding to frustration, distress and other negative emotions. Block Party was installed in the Dengerink Administration Building in August, and will be on display through Dec. 15.
Part of the installation consists of a grid as its overarching motif with smaller modular pieces arranged throughout, which was a new approach in creating for Saab.
“It was definitely a new way of thinking about how I install my own work, because I get really bored with the whole, like, straight line, evenly spaced BS,” said Saab. “I think that opened up my eyes to the possibility of how you can make basic pieces of art in a frame turn into a greater installation, and give the room some excitement.”
Saab was invited to show their work at WSU Vancouver by Fine Arts Professor Avantika Bawa, whom they met at Bawa’s show last October at Portland Community College.
“I met several faculty members including Zeinab and at the same time, and we just felt like there was [an] intermediate affinity for the way we talked about color forms, grids and systems,” said Bawa. “… Zeinab is a first generation American, I’m from India originally, so [we were] also just talking about the immigrant experience.”
Bawa assisted Saab with installing all the pieces of Block Party before the semester started. WSU Vancouver Fine Arts Technician Noah Matteucci was also involved in the installation process but was unavailable for comment.
“I think it’s a fantastic show,” said Bawa. “It was installed when students are coming back after a summer break so we wanted something really snazzy. We wanted to really fancy up, just jazz up the walls with bursts of color so that the energy of the new semester could be resonated, a very colorful welcoming to students for the fall semester.”
Saab used to be inspired by minimalism and the lack of color, but has since developed a love for maximalism and a passion for color. They noted that the differences between these approaches to art are also reflected in different cultures across the world and mentioned experiencing these differences firsthand due to their Lebanese-American heritage.
“I actually teach this to my students too, in our color theory class,” said Saab. “[The] politics of color… The West is obvious, for sleek, minimal color, and then [there are] cultures within the global South, where it’s very vivid, very bright, very maximalist. We would consider it in the West of [being], I guess for lack of a better term, over the top
Saab was first drawn to photography in high school. This got them thinking more about composition and elements of design, which led them to take more art classes and branch out into new interests and forms of art.
“That’s my thing at the end, I get bored easily,” said Saab. “To describe my artwork, it’s just hopping from one hyperfixation to the next, you know?”
Drawing inspiration from their memories and channeling emotions into art, Saab has connected their younger self to now through much of their work. One such piece is “So Happy I Could Die from this Watermelon Sugar High.”
“The title ‘So Happy I Could Die’ comes from one of my favorite bands, Radiohead,” said Saab. “And so it’s thinking about my teenage self. And my adult self now thinking about, like, I love Harry Styles, I’m a fan girl. And just that song, ‘Watermelon Sugar’ high. So for me, it’s allowing myself as an adult to be a teenager in some aspects that I wasn’t able to be, to be more expressive now than I was able to before. This whole installation is a way to express appreciation and joy of life, amidst whatever sort of trauma or conflict is taking place.”
Saab’s experiences with gender norms and family expectations have also influenced their work. “You Wanted Femininity But All I Have is Fire” encompasses such a conflict.
“The fire-like colors are pushing and pulling with one another,” said Saab. “I associate lavender to my mom because she’s obsessed with that color, it has that connotation of my mom and femininity, even though lavender is very queer-coded, it’s very much for her, associated with softness. I feel like it’s a clash of identities, where her expectations of what I should be in [relation] to gender and gender norms and behaviors is always going to be a clash.”
Similarly, Saab’s “I’m Still Young, That’s My Fault” is titled based on lyrics from Cass Stevens’ “Father and Son.”
“The actual lyric is ‘you’re still young and that’s your fault,’” said Saab. “It’s this back and forth between a father and son. I just relate to that song a lot because it’s for myself and both my parents, it’s definitely connected to my dad of his expectations of me not necessarily through expression of gender, but more of the idea of obedience and the idea of how he sees respect and loyalty versus how I see respect and loyalty, and there’s a clash with that too.”
Through the process of creating Block Party, Saab realized that they enjoyed working on smaller modular pieces, opting to then put them together to create larger pieces instead of working with one large canvas.
“I like the idea of wherever that piece goes it can be arranged however you want and it creates sort of a new portal of color,” said Saab. “I show my care and love of life through my practice. I’m not really expressive with my emotions as a person. Like I said, I deflect all feelings with emotion, but I feel like showing the labor of love you put into your work is [an] expression of the love you have for yourself and the world around you.”