Artist Talk: David Najib Kasir

There were a couple things I was captivated by when reading through others' reflections on the artist. Jessie wrote,

"He [uses faceless figures] to make sure
himself as well as his viewers can
understand what they are going through... viewers can put themselves
and their own loved ones into the pieces."

I did find the faceless works a lot more captivating, with the very first work being the only one (?) to utilize an real portrait. It was not as relatable to e personally, although I was empathizing with the complex emotions depicted in the portrait. However, my fascination with the lack of eyes, mouth, nose, and other facial structures in the figures was not from seeing such as encouragement of empathy or compassion...

My interpretation of facelessness is darker: it is that anyone can be these figures, or rather that these figures represent all people who will fit this visual description. A commentary on cultural conditioning, with boys playing war growing into men murdering real people. As someone who left Russia partially to escape the high possibility of draft, this reading makes sense to me as I would have been, with 100% certainty, drafted into the war in Ukraine, had I not moved to US.

The depth of some of the works was very fascinating to me, I loved how David considered all things that embed the work including the depth of the frame. And, it is the geometricity of the work in all aspects, with David manipulating even the angle of rotation to make the viewer read the work as a different shape.

Overall, I appreciated the thoughfullness author put into all aspects of his work, and wish that I was there for the talk! So much culturally-specific context here...

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