Oceans at my Door

By Suzanne Révy

Rania Matar’s work is a deep exploration of femininity and womanhood. Her portraits of preteen girls, teenagers in their rooms, and mothers and daughters reveal personal, cultural and generational expressions that we have written about here, here and here. But important secondary themes have emerged in Matar’s most recent series of pictures: that of a sense of place and questions about the future. In celebration of the acquisition of the portfolio She, the Fitchburg Art Museum (FAM) has mounted a solo show called Rania Matar: Oceans at my Door which also includes her new work made over the past two years in her native Lebanon called Where Do I Go?  This show has been extended through January 7th, 2024.

Installation view of Rania Matar: Oceans at my Door at the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA, photo courtesy of the artist.

“Sylvie, Beirut, Lebanon” by Rania Matar, 2018 from the series She, courtesy of the artist, Robert Klein Gallery, Boston and the Fitchburg Art Museum.

“Yara, Cairo, Egypt” by Rania Matar, 2019, from the series She, courtesy of the artist, Robert Klein Gallery, Boston and the Fitchburg Art Museum.

“Ciearra – 2, Winston-Salem, North Carolina” by Rania Matar, 2018, from the series She, courtesy of the artist, Robert Klein Gallery, Boston and the Fitchburg Art Museum.

Loosely organized into five visual groupings by FAM curator Lauren Szumita, the exhibition is installed salon-style on deep red painted walls that enhance Matar’s rich palette. Color and form heighten the emotional charge of the portraits, but the locations offer a meditation on the role that a place might play in our psychological development. A figure clad in lilac lying recumbent by the blue sea or the earthy tones of trees surrounding a young girl’s arm or the pink hair dye of a young woman by a patch of coneflowers suggest a kinship with the natural world. Several pictures made among bombed-out buildings or shattered windows in Lebanon reveal the traumas that Lebanese women have suffered. Matar finds a kind of grace in her sitters in among the ruins. How has the recent history of Lebanon shaped these women, and for that matter, how has it shaped Matar and her art?

“Demi, the Broken Glass, Brummana, Lebanon” by Rania Matar, 2021, from the series Where Do I Go? courtesy of the artist, Robert Klein Gallery, Boston and the Fitchburg Art Museum.

Matar left Lebanon at the age of twenty to flee the civil war. She studied architecture at Cornell and settled in Boston to raise her family. She picked up a camera when her children were little in the late nineties to photograph them, but expanded from her own family into portraiture that investigated the differences and similarities between her adopted and native homes. In She, Matar shifted her focus from the intimate private spaces or her sitters to pictures made outside among among flowers, trees or weeds. The collaborations with her sitters give them agency, as she asks what is our place in the natural world and where can we find our true selves? 

“Rianna, Bhamdoun, Lebanon” by Rania Matar, 2022, from the series Where Do I Go? courtesy of the artist, Robert Klein Gallery, Boston and the Fitchburg Art Museum.

“Petra with Miss Lebanon 1972, Gemmayze, Beirut, Lebanon” by Rania Matar, with wall art by Brady Black, from the series Where Do I Go? courtesy of the artist, Robert Klein Gallery, Boston and the Fitchburg Art Museum.

Through the pandemic and after the horrific explosions in Beirut’s harbor, Matar worried for her aging father and decided to return with more frequency. Where Do I Go? is an ongoing body of work made during these recent visits, and it considers the consequences of political turmoil and the impacts of war and destruction on the spirit. Matar found the title among graffiti in the ruins of Beirut, and it embodies a sense of the past and the present. While her sitters seem to look toward the future, Matar holds a mirror to her past. “Rianna” references Botticelli’s  Birth of Venus or perhaps a phoenix rising from the ashes while “Petra with Miss Lebanon 1972” brings a complicated history into sharp focus. It echoes Matar’s layered relationship to her younger self and to her homeland. 

(Feature Image) “Fawzia, Ramlet Al Bayda, Beirut, Lebanon (#1)” by Rania Matar, 2022, from the series Where Do I Go? courtesy of the artist, Robert Klein Gallery, Boston and the Fitchburg Art Museum.

“Mariam, Beirut, Lebanon” by Rania Matar, 2021, from the series Where Do I Go? courtesy of the artist, Robert Klein Gallery, Boston and the Fitchburg Art Museum.

“Chermine, Hamra, Beirut, Lebanon” by Rania Matar, 2022, from the series Where Do I Go? courtesy of the artist, Robert Klein Gallery, Boston and the Fitchburg Art Museum.

Matar’s pictures teem with life and death. Oceans, doors and passageways breathe a hopeful, but cautious note through metaphor and symbolism. Resplendent in red by a stormy turquoise  sea, “Fawzia” is fearless where “Mariam” is more circumspect as she gazes toward the horizon from the safety of a child’s swing. Architectural and structural elements in the pictures are not merely background, but become portraits of places that can either create a sense of foreboding or poignantly embrace the figure. The defiant stance of “Chermine” in a red skirt under a roof with a gaping hole that reveals a red wall resembles a battle wound. The draped body of “Aya” who is bathed in light from two large windows offers an expression that is reminiscent of Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Theresa. But in a surprising turn, there is one picture that features no figure. It depicts a softy lit room with an open door to a lush overgrown green garden, offering a mysterious visual break. Matar may be asking for herself, “where do I go?” but her pictures urgently implore us to ask, “where are we all going?”

“Aya (Draping), Gemmayze, Beirut, Lebanon” by Rania Matar, 2022, from the series Where Do I Go? courtesy of the artist, Robert Klein Gallery, Boston and the Fitchburg Art Museum.

“Open Door, Beirut, Lebanon” by Rania Matar, 2022, from the series Where Do I Go? courtesy of the artist, Robert Klein Gallery, Boston and the Fitchburg Art Museum.

While you are visiting FAM, be sure to check out Eye of the Beholder: Gender Through the Photographic Lens which features portraiture by such luminaries as Susan Meiselas, André Kertesz, Annie Leibovitz, Zanele Muholi and Cindy Sherman among others. It underscores the breadth of the museum’s photography holdings and is on view through September 10th, 2023. 

For more information go to: https://fitchburgartmuseum.org

“Mariam, Kfarkila, Lebanon” by Rania Matar, 2022, from the series Where Do I Go? courtesy of the artist, Robert Klein Gallery, Boston and the Fitchburg Art Museum.