by
Dr. Mohammed Sameer Abd Elsalam
In her abstract works, Ulie Schwab(1) made a new creative relationship between the brushy, colored layer and the shiny space behind the main tone of the work. She also created some deep gaps which included cosmic signs, everyday life sounds, myths, spectral shapes and unconscious images. Therefore, she produced an open, abstract and transformed structure of signs, that both of the brushy area and the hidden, metaphoric gap included the multiplicity of existence, its mystic signs, its transformations and the slow, dark rhythm of the unconscious world.
Moreover, we can notice a new musical gesture behind Ulie's colored areas, that the loud, brushy spots reflected the aesthetic impact of allegro movement in music. On the other hand, the slow, wavy areas of color reflected the aesthetic impact of adagio movement in music. These hidden tones, behind the colors, contained everything, all sounds of past, present and circular sense beyond the spectral borders of abstract work.
So, Ulie Schwab added a new semiotic and cosmic impact to the color field school, that she put, in her abstract works, many dense layers, spots, imagined gaps and wavy, metaphoric shapes or ghosts that represented the musical impact of colors in many different contexts behind the structure of work and also its borders, for example, she implied to the loud and cosmic tones of the sun in her work "Mysteries of the Sun", that yellow reflected the hyper simplicity of the shining areas and the fast, deep transformations of shapes at the same time. On the other hand, the black spots and layers reflect another deep and paradoxical world which contains silence, loud voices and unconscious interacted images behind subjective human feelings.
In this multiple context, we can refer to Andre Malraux's perspective about the new creative adjacency between artworks beyond the structure of time in the imagined museum, that the works of Goya, Michelangelo and Pierodella Francesca were interacted in the viewer's mind behind walls(2). So, Malraux, in his unique book "Voices of Silence, "asserted the artistic interaction behind time, place, space and the first imaginary energy of the artist, hence we can recreate multiple significations and contexts in this creative, adjacency relationship. Ulie also reproduces the internal musical relationships between colors. On the other hand, she returned to interacted and hidden sounds, tones and signifiers from human history, myths and cosmic worlds to make new creative significations in the viewer's mind.
In her abstract work "Sounds of the Earth", Ulie created a semiotic structure of yellow, white and the deep, hidden black of brushy layers. So, she implied to the wavy areas of feminine dreamy water, light stream of everyday life, its complex and hidden tones, interacted sounds and its postmodern multiplicity, loudness, silence and the creative sounds of planets and collective unconsciousness signs.
Also, Ulie captured the circular shining of existence and the circular shining of rebirth energy in her work "Towards Infinity", that the semiotic structure of the work was based on the shiny light behind the dark area and the wavy abstract shapes. Furthermore, she implied to a probable eye or an abstract, bright spot of water. Therefore, the work supported the hidden power of the existence stream and its differ and shiny signs which birth and rebirth between the dark tone and the loud passageway.
In a different artistic context, in her work "Treasures of the Sea", Ulie constructed a new semiotic structure of divine purity impact and earthly loudness, that she interpreted the sign of sea through the structural discordance between the upswing of blue water and the loud red spot which implied to mythical sounds under the layers of pure, imagined water.
In a similar literary context, I remembered the dense and rich image of sea in Saint John Perse's works, such as Anabasis and Lighthouses, that we can listen to the ancient Greece characters in interacted and metaphoric ways. Also, Ulie made a free, semiotic superiority of the sea which included many dense sounds of the past, its deferred cries or its deferred pleasurable moments behind the red spots and dark spots.
Additionally, we can use the semiotic method and the semiotic, semantic square of Algirdas Greimas and Jacques Fontanille to discover the deep semiotic relationships behind the signs network of the Ulie's work, that she referred to a figural stream of treasures beyond the hidden movement of the sea and under its layers and its dense red spots.
In Ulie's work, we can recognize the structural discordance between the creative purity of blue and the loud music of red and dark spots at the top of the semiotic, semantic square. On the other hand, we can discover both of the transcendence of blue and the loud, narrative tones of redspots behind the calm waves.(see schema number 1).
In another abstract context, Ulie emphasized the aesthetic impact of the unconscious world in her unique work "Sounds of the Earth 2", that she returned to many gestures of the hidden level of life behind the signs of dreams, daydreams, collective unconsciousness signs and the stream of spectral sounds of the past through the creative relationship between shiny yellow and wavy black area.
In addition to this stream of unconscious and hidden signs, we can view the deep, transformed memories, motives and scares in personal and human context, and we can return to Freud's perspective about Da Vinci in his unique book "Leonardo Da Vinci and A Memory of His Childhood", that Freud implied to the deep unconscious impact of Da Vinci's mother, her late transformations and her various, hidden simulacrums in his inner world (3).So, we can interpret the shiny signs of life stream according to Ulie through the deep, dark unconscious areas and the hidden impact of transformed memories or dreams.
Furthermore, if we apply the semiotic, semantic square in this context, we will discover a new contradictory and harmonious relation between signs, that we firstly recognize the structural discordance between the sound of unconsciousness and the shiny everyday stream at the top. On the other hand, we see the hyper interaction of unconscious, mixed sounds or tones and the wide, imagined shiny area which interacted with unconscious tones in its internal structure.(See schema number 2).
In the context of renewing color field movement, Ulie implied to the music of existence, its paradoxical tones and also its harmonious sounds which appeared as a musical concerto, that Ulie made a new sense in color filed in her unique work "Beyond Black and Red"; she recreated the musical relation between deep, unconscious black area and loud, alive red area, so, we can imagine a deep piano and a loud violin behind the tones of Ulie's work. Furthermore, in this context, I remember the great abstract works of Mark Rothko and its deep impacts of colored spots. But Ulie added a new sense to color filed, that she made new gaps, new layers, new hidden spots and cosmic tones in her artistic viewpoint.
Moreover, if we apply the analytic semiotic, semantic square here, we will find the structural discordance between the musical harmony behind red and black and the postmodern exhaustion of colors in their wide gaps and imagined liquid areas at the top of the square.On the other hand, we will discover, at the bottom, the brushy design in the middle of the work and also the purity of the colored archipelago in its open borders. )See schema number 3).
Finally, I believe that Ulie Schwab captured wide hidden, subjective and cosmic areas behind the mystic signs of the abstract phenomenon. Ulie's works also reflected the interacted cultural powers, such as the joy of life stream, strong spirit and the complexity of existence levels.
*Schemas:
*References:
(1) Watch some of Ulie Schwab's abstract works at:
(2) Read, Andre Malraux, Voices of Silence, Translated by: Stuart Gilbert, Paladin, 1972, p. 15.
(3) Read, Sigmund Freud, Leonardo Da Vinci and A Memory of His Childhood, Translated by: A. A. Brill, PH, B, M. D. 2003 by Barnes, Nobel books, p. 36, 40 and 41.
Dr. Mohammed Sameer Abd Elsalam
Art Critic .. Literary Critic
