Figures stroll and linger, singly, in pairs or groups, conversing, in mutual apprehension, or unawares, through a variety of settings a garden, an alley, a desert, a palace, a plaza in Munira's new work. What mysterious trysts are formed and unformed within these highly abstract pictorial spaces! Perhaps Munira paints the nature of the International Scene, much as her first body of work portrayed the Bedouins of Abu Dhabi, where she lived for 15 years. The very character of the Arabs was captured in simple monumental paintings of black and gold, sand and tar. Now, after living in Paris, London, and New York, her canvases virtually burst with a wealthy diversity of all colors, in surfaces which open and close, switching between the figurative and the abstract.

Whereas before Munira revealed the veils of Islam, she now appears to trace the masquerades of contemporary life, chronicling glances and secrets, rendering the visible incognito. All decisions are pending here; nothing is absolute except for the ceaslessly shifting stage.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 10, 1986s.