The first time I learned about Piet Mondrian’s abstract work was in senior high school in Doha in 1989. At that time, my feelings were a mixture of amazement and curiosity: Why is this art? What is the philosophy behind this type of art? 

Without knowing, those questions would become a lifelong journey of me stumbling upon random works of Mondrian every now and then, which led me to build up a visual taste for it more than a deep understanding of it. 

I did not pursue an academic answer right when those feelings generated was because, after high school, I moved to Damascus to study dentistry, then to the United States to study anthropology. It wasn’t until 2007 when I started studying art as a graduate student, then teaching art history, that I started reading more about early European abstraction, Neo-Plasticism, and more about the artistic journey of Piet Mondrian as a leading example of that specific movement in Western art history.

As a painter, I started experimenting with Mondrian’s principles of painting and design, but with using more expressive methods such as drip, splatter, and other techniques borrowed from action painting. The paintings within my Broadway Boogie-Woogie body of work are examples of those experimentations of using paint as an artistic medium.

Later on, this artistic endeavor developed into working on a theatrical project that focuses on using the stage to reflect the Neo-Plastic principles that Mondrian applied in his paintings. The project describes how Mondrian’s artistic journey carries dramatic elements borrowed from theosophical writers like Gilbran and Hesse. 

Mondrian’s artistic journey from naturalism* to abstraction was a journey from contemplation to creation. This transformation reminded me of Hesse’s Siddarta or Gilbran’s Prophet.

Broadway Boogie-Woogie is a theatrical project that portrays this story of transformation in Mondrian’s art and life.

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To learn more about this project, click below: