Fallen Archetypes is a series of several variations, as he terms it, from Mejri’s upcoming solo show. To this end, through this newest body of work, he examines what happens in the painting and through the painting, where indifference bids farewell, and affect becomes activated; it strikes back with force. In front of Mejri’s compositions, impelled to plumb the depth of their compounded enigmas, at times we gaze at the canvases’ upper edges, in anticipation of an impending fall, whilst at other times we observe as it has already unfolded. We stand as beholders, disarmed, ceded of our authority and poise, in front of what may have been consciously buried. We are indeed not immune to their spectrality. The densely packed paintings are in concordant engagement as they echo one another, albeit in confrontation ad infinitum. Revelations are lodged within the constellations of guideposts¾ elements that the optic cannot evade nor repel. On planes of deepening reds and greens, smeared by gusts of diagonal lines, where blues are unusually threatening and hostile, the seemingly accidental is in fact intentional in its defiance.

He seeks to reinterpret the language of paint, by means of mutiny and dissent, as to translate the immediacy of his tragic vision of the world. The brushwork is all the more important as his color palette denotes more than a mere reminiscence of atmosphere; the aggregation of hues and elements signals an eruption, a solfatara, a muffled noise, a cacophony, a cue for imminent catastrophe and hostility, potentially echoing an ecological stance, as Mejri ponders whether or not we are in harmony with our environments. Often defying gravity, the highly visible contours of his figures’ disassembled limbs, legs and hands, enhance Mejri’s lucid facture where the act of crucifixion is reinterpreted–– hence sparking a dialogue with Grünewald for instance. The postures and scales are imperatively of direct significance for they serve as a coda to his open ended questioning on the alienation, fall and demise of Man. The violent motion overlaid on the canvas evidently bespeaks our current positions in the world, how we are in a state of constant menace, alerted, and in crisis.