“I am a means to an end. I transpose the cosmic, magnetic vibrations that rule us.”

- Fahrelnissa Zeid

Ischia Terra Incognita offers rare insight into Fahrelnissa Zeid’s Ischia period in the 1960s. Following the Iraq Revolution in 1958, and the exile of her family, Ischia became a place of refuge where the artist’s palette shifts from darker, foreboding tones to luminous compositions inspired by the sea and sky.

In this painting, fractures of light and brilliant bursts of colour appear to shimmer, dissolve, and morph across the canvas. As noted by Adila Laïdi-Hanieh, this dynamic composition may be connected to Zeid witnessing displays of fireworks reflected upon the waters surrounding the Italian island. The exploration of light, particularly when refracted through or reflected upon water, recurs throughout Zeid’s practice.

On the artist’s Ischia period, Adila Laidi-Hanieh writes: “Here Fahrelnissa abandoned for a while the busy surfaces of her Abstract Expressionist style for a form of abstraction that is representative of an objective reality that is already abstract: the depths of the sea, its contents, the glare of the sun, the burst of fireworks. These are not fixed objects that can be seen realistically in all their minute details. Fahrelnissa abstracts them further with her painting. These works retain an Expressionist fantasy. However, there is no need for her to exaggerate forms excessively because the natural tableaux she represents are already otherworldly to her exalted perspective.”

The composition reveals a rhythmic sensibility, recalling the influence of Wassily Kandinsky in a melodic approach to line and tempo. Marks and colour accumulate with a sense of lyricism, creating a surface alive with movement. Reflecting sensations of transformation, instability, and renewal, the canvas forms an expansive, immersive space through which Zeid defines her visual language in the wake of personal and historical upheaval.