Jowhara Alsaud Photography: Solitary Confinement is not so Lonely (or so it appears) by Heidi Marston

Photography has always borrowed aesthetics from painting and drawing, and then depending on the trend of the time, Painting has returned the favor. I have always been interested in that intersection in artists like Gerhard Richter, Sandy Skogland, and many others. I encourage you to check out this site if you are also interested in this kind of work:

www.jowharaalsaud.com

. . Jowhara Alsaud is a recent MFA Grad from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Her work uses photographic composition with the look of drawings that have dark outlines and have then been colored in. The images are both playful and tense, though the figure is never unmasked and seems forever to be alone; she never seems to have a gesture of loneliness.
In one series of images, the character in these small visual skits is playing solitaire. Now we have all thought at one time or another, "only lonely geeks play solitaire.", but at the same time we have all tried it, and probably have gotten really into it, but would never admit it. Here is a series of 30 x 40 prints of playing solitaire set up in a public gallery. There seems to be a feeling of waiting, we have all played spoliator at some point in our lives while waiting: waiting for someone or something. In Alsaud's installation at the Aidekman Art Center I got the feeling that this character was waiting for me to get it, you know, get the joke, get the point, get something. Here in this exhibition is, maybe the artist herself, actually there in front of me, playing solitaire and waiting for me to figure out the story, or maybe the relationship between the stories. In an almost graphic novel style Alsaud has taken a form of "drawing" that has long been considered "comic book" style and turned it into "narrative photography" considered by some a more acceptable format for a gallery exhibit. The point is Alsaud made interesting imagery combining several mediums and whether someone wants to see it one way or another, there is no way to not be interested in some part of the story. But somehow I felt that the only way I was going to get it was to let go of any preconceiveded notions of photography, so I got out my deck of cards and began to play along.