Summerville Residents Art To Be Displayed At Moon Gallery
By: Jason Espy
Can a body on a silent canvas talk? One Summerville resident thinks so.
“Let Me Hear Your Body Talk,” is the brainchild of Atteka Abdou’s senior project that goes on display this week at Berry College.
“The mouth is not the only part of the body that can express joy, hate and other emotions. The body works as a whole and is capable of displaying a spectrum of emotions,” she said. “I hope the public sees this through my works.”
Her works go on display (April 28 through May 2) at the college’s Moon Gallery. A reception is scheduled for 5 p.m. May 1 at the same location. The public is invited.
“I picked various words like confidence, defeat, mendacity and joy and used them to depict what I see the body looking like when it is joyous, defeated or mendacious,” she said.
It was while attending New York’s Pratt Institute that her senior art show theme began to formulate in her mind.
“I thought it was an original idea until I accidentally discovered that it was part of a famous song from way back when,” she said.
While scrolling through YouTube videos Abdou stumbled across Olivia Newton-John’s 1981-hit called ‘Physical’. A key phase in the song was “Let me hear your body talk.”
“I was terribly disappointed that somebody had already come up with the theme. But I stuck with it and tried to ignore that terrible song and video,” Abdou said.
That number one hit song was banned in several countries and MTV even at times edited out the ending of that video because of its sexual overtones. Moving away from those types of bodily expression, Abdou says her professors in New York helped her see the human body in an artistic light.
“When I was there, I got to work with nude models every day. My drawing classes were six hours long and I got about 45 minutes for lunch,” Abdou said. “It was kind of like doctors, they see nudity all the time and they don’t think anything about it. They become immune to it.”
Even before the New York college experience, she spent lots of time studying baroque and renaissance sculptors and painters such as Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.
Jokingly when asked who some of her art teachers were, she says, “Michelangelo.”
“Leonardo Da Vinci and Michanelgo worked with many nude models. That is the only way to understand the human body. In fact, da Vinci sometimes operated on cadavers to understand the bone and muscle structures. I don’t think I’ll go that far. I’ll stick with the college medical book called ‘Grey’s Anatomy.’
Abdou’s series of drawings, about 15, show the body expressing joy, fear, confidence, victory and bravery. They encompass both males and females.
“There are two things I’m fascinated about. They are the human body and octopi. I have one piece entitled Bravery and it depicts an octopus and a man with a harpoon doing battle. Each piece has a quote to go along with the artwork and that one is from Virgil. It says, ‘Fortune favors the brave.’”
That work is oil paint on paper – Arches 140 pound watercolor paper. It takes a special way to prepare the paper in order for the oil to adhere to the paper properly, according to her.
“I have another one called Victory. The reason I picked the name Victory is because I like Tennessee Williams’ play, ‘Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.’ One of the quotes from the play, Brick asks his wife, “What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?” Maggie replies, ‘Just staying on it I guess, long as she can..’ In other words, determination will get you somewhere. Now my drawing of Victory has nothing to do with the cat but it’s my interpretation of what the human body looks like victorious.”
Most of Abdou’s drawings for this series are 22”x 30” She has one, however, called Faith that is about eight foot tall.
“I would say it is one of the most important that I have. It depicts two acrobats. The one of the ground has his hands above his head and holding up the other acrobat while doing a handstand. It depicts faith that the other man is not going to let him fall. Now for that one, I went through the Bible and read every single passage that has the word faith in it. I decided to go with the passage, ‘O my God, I trust in you: let me not be ashamed, let not my enemies triumph over me.’ (Psalms 25:2) I tell myself that at least once a day. Without God’s help, I wasn’t going to get this show done on time. I saw it as an impossible task. I’ve pushed myself harder this semester than any other. Because there are certain requirements that I have to meet for my senior thesis,” she said.
She graduates this Spring with her bachelors. Some of the people that have helped her art career along are Berry’s Dr. Thomas Mew III, Dr. Jere Lykins and Dr. Virginia Troy; Georgia Highlands College Professor Brian Barr; Pratt’s Professor Paul Carrellas and local artists and former Chattooga High School Art Teacher John Turner.
The Moon Gallery is located near Berry’s main entrance. Go three-fourths around the circle passed the main gate and take a right unto Opportunity Drive. The gallery is inside the third building on the left and admission is free.
Abdou’s passion of fine arts was kindled during her days of coloring books and paper dolls. Since those childhood days, Atteka’s life has centered on the arts.
Taking on a challenge is what Atteka loves, she designed, promoted and pulled off a successful fashion show at Rome’s Forum at the early age of seventeen while a senior at Chattooga High School in Summerville.
Atteka is very serious about being an artist. She studied at Pratt Institute, one of New York’s premier art colleges and is a senior at Berry College.
Beyond academics, her art skills helped her win two first place awards in the Georgia Press Association Better Newspaper Contest. She previously won for feature and on the spot news photography for The Summerville News.
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