The Seventh Month

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The Seventh Month

Artist Diana Al-Hadid (Syrian, born 1981)

Date2015

Dimensions109 × 85 × 6 in. (276.9 × 215.9 × 15.2 cm)

MediumPolymer gypsum, fiberglass, steel, plaster, gold leaf, pigment

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott

Object number

2017.15

Not on View

Label TextProjecting out from the surface of the wall, The Seventh Month appears purely abstract; but stand back, and you may be able to make out the image of a pregnant woman with a sword by her side. In creating this work, Diana Al-Hadid was inspired by depictions of women from the Northern Renaissance. The monumental panel drips into the space of the viewer, invoking time, impermanence, presence/absence, construction/destruction, and the relationship between image and object. Although it may appear that parts of the work were removed to create its gaps, Al-Hadid's approach is in fact additive—the result of methodical layering and controlled dripping of polymer gypsum and pigment. The effect, she explains, is that, “Nothing is stable. Everything is moving and dripping and messy.” Al-Hadid, who was born in Syria and grew up in Ohio, says of the work, “I was taken by the image of a pregnant woman who was also carrying a sword. I myself was in my seventh month of pregnancy…. I find a way to relate to it personally or discover it may have a double meaning.”Exhibition HistoryNew Orleans, LA, Newcomb Art Museum, Tulane University; Oakland, CA, The Mills College Art Museum, Diana Al Hadid, April 26- July 24, 2016; January 18- March 12, 2017.