and he observes them, conveying their image onto the canvas with great care and much empathy.
The jars are detached from their surroundings, either floating in space or nearly filling it up to the brim.
Their secret is invisible, concealed therein. One peers into the jar unaware of its contents, remaining focused on the surface which embeds the prime qualities of painting. It is a meditative, slow, inquisitive painting,
striving to explore the mysteries of existence, for which the jar is both a vehicle and a metaphor.
to the gradually vanishing values of painting based on collaboration between viewer and artist,
underlied by a serene, slow observation. It is as though Natif kneads the jars in the painting.
An artistry from yesterworld, the patient practice of pottery is simulated in the act of painting, and the latter is performed simply, with great love, and much compassion, for the face of the jar is not unlike a human face.
or in the void surrounding it. Nonetheless, the painting's surface conveys remarkable simplicity
and modesty - a yearning for harmony. The paintings possess a classicist quality, detached
neither from the language and spirit of the present, nor from a past and a tradition which Natif respects
and perceives as an inseparable part of the fast-paced present.
and in the vessels' covert, enigmatic content. The ritualistic repetition of the same element within the same color spectrum brings to mind a religious ritual, a form of secular religiosity striving to fathom the secrets of existence, to fuse matter with spirit, to derive power from observing the world's wonders and attempting to create them anew, time and again, in the form of jars.
