Tomm El-Saieh‘s paintings evoke the mystical feeling of hearing incantations in strange tongues. Born of mixed heritage in Port-au-Prince, El-Saieh migrated to Miami at the age of 12. The artist is steeped in Western and Caribbean art traditions; he co-directs an artist-run space in Miami while also managing a Port-au-Prince gallery of Haitian art founded by his grandfather. In effort to address the tensions of his hybrid background, El-Saieh employs a unique manner of painting amalgamating elements recalling Impressionism and Modernist abstraction with flair endemic to his native Haiti. At a distance, the five monumental paintings in “Run,” his current show at Matthew Brown Gallery, resemble woven or embroidered textiles shimmering with subtle variations of greens, blues, reds, oranges and grays. These stretched canvases almost seem to defy logic and billow like curtains in the wind. As one approaches, their surfaces pour forth intricate webs of detail overlaying the ethereal expanses of color that define each composition from afar. El-Saieh’s allover patterns of esoteric shapes, squiggles and curlicues appear indebted to the visual language of veves, Voodoo ideograms that are drawn on the ground to summon spirits during religious rituals. Indeed, gazing at his horror vacui compositions draws one into a trancelike state. Faces, animals, letters and words emerge from abstract configurations, only to vanish before their significance may be grasped. Such dreamy evanescence conveys impressions of floating between two worlds.

Matthew Brown Gallery
633 N. La Brea Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Show runs through Jun. 22