Forgotten Wisdom

Selected for the 52nd Bahrain Annual Fine Arts Exhibition at the Bahrain National Museum in 2026.

Inspired by Dr Hasan Madan’s reflection in “Windows of Hope” that “Whenever a person has more knowledge, and his experiences stretch wider, the broader and richer their scope of observation becomes,” and his assertion that “Life, as one dramatist says, is the greatest author,” this encaustic triptych transforms a fragment of a weathered wooden railing bearing an elderly hand into a meditation on the isolation of age. The separated panels symbolise the widening gap between generations, critiquing a world that is too rushed to heed the wisdom of its elders. Within the cracked wood, the word “Care” is hidden in the wax, a gentle plea to nurture bonds that preserve knowledge, revealed only through a purposeful observation. This work draws from Byung-Chul Han’s philosophy of the transparent society, where truth fragments into meaningless data, mirroring how society overlooks the profound narratives of the aged in favour of superficial digital
exchanges.

The original image was generated using AI in Midjourney, highlighting the paradox of digital abundance that conceals authentic experiences, much like Han’s critique of hypervisibility, which strips away depth. By selecting a fragment and rendering it in encaustic, I abstract the AI’s artificial reality into a tactile form, questioning how technology mediates our perception and fragments truth, aligning with the contest’s themes of knowledge and community. QR codes placed beside the work allow viewers to access the full AI-generated image, contrasting the “whole” digital illusion with the abstracted fragment and emphasising the effort required to uncover the essential, as Madan suggests through expanded observation. Rooted in the belief that pausing to listen reveals a resilient truth, the painting invites a return to empathy, thereby fostering cultural growth within Bahrain’s artistic ecosystem.

Please go to the other page to view the original AI-generated image, with a highlighted box indicating the fragment extracted for this artwork.

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