Ayla El-Moussa

The artist subverts traditional ideas of gaze in this daring landscape whose currents pull you inexorably closer to the shore of the figure.  Will you be shipwrecked by the siren’s song?

Photographer Ayla El-Moussa is in constant motion, transporting viewer emotions through her layers of meaning, seen and unseen, from warm to cool.

Capturing the landscape of the ocean, the largest dynamic surface of mother Earth, she pulls at the conventions of gaze, because she is its subject, object, and owner. Within these mixing surface currents, we have El-Moussa, self-photographed, looking as a source of pleasure, just as, in the reverse formation, there is pleasure in being looked at.

These give way to the transience of censorship and political climate and the vastness of the ocean all crashing against the essence of nature, the female form, and time.

She is physically motionless. Absolute. A meditative muse letting the circadian rhythms of day and night wash over her and us the voyeur. This is coded into our existence as much as in the contract. Add yet… headless, unable to see, her only purpose to be seen. What gaze do you choose?

Digital Artwork

Ayla El-Moussa (b. 1991)
Allegorical Figure of Day & Night (2022)
from the collection of MetasNomadic
MP4 file, NFT

External Links

Website : https://www.aylaelmoussa.com/
Twitter : https://twitter.com/aylaelmoussa
SuperRare : https://superrare.com/

The art commentary above is linked to a physical space displaying the referenced artworks. CC conceived, compiled, and curated Mandala Club’s inaugural art exhibition which launched 4 March 2023: “From Pixels to Dust”.