Katherine Brooks: Asad Faulwell‘s massive canvases channel the ornate appearance of tapestries or kilim, weaving together intricate designs from paint, paper and pins. Yet the repeating patterns flowing in and out of the foreground are interrupted by decidedly darker, psychedelic imagery.
The faces of phantom women populate the frame, their faces and bodies obscured at times by neon adornments that creep around limbs and back into the canvases’ backgrounds. You might not recognize the female visages, but the series, “Les Femmes D’Alger,” centers on Algerian female combatants from the Algerian War of Independence. The blacked-out eyes and whimsically cloaked figures are meant to belong to women who took part in the guerrilla attacks that took place from 1954 to 1962 in French-occupied Algeria. More here.