Orchestre sous-marine (Underwater Orchestra), Jellal Ben Abdallah

Exhibition Label:
“Holding Pattern: New Works at the Spencer Museum,” Sep-2014, Susan Earle and Cassandra Mesick
The only member of the original École de Tunis alive today, Jellal Ben Abdallah is an active Tunisian artist, illustrator, interior designer, and muralist. Regardless of medium, he draws from diverse artistic movements and styles, though thematically he favors landscapes, still lifes, and scenes of domestic, often feminine, activities. The style and imagery of Orchestre sous-marine is an invaluable example of 20th-century Arab surrealism that highlights several elements common in Ben Abdallah’s later work, including cool color palettes, female subjects, painstaking attention to costume, and the depiction of musical performance.
This painting is one of four preparatory studies Ben Abdallah created to plan for his otherworldly tile-work mural installed at the Hotel les Palmiers, an upscale hotel in Monastir, Tunisia. Built by famed architect Olivier Cacoub, Hotel les Palmiers is perched on the coastline next to former Tunisian leader Habib Bourguiba’s presidential palace (also designed by Cacoub). After a period of relative neglect, Hotel les Palmiers is currently experiencing a thoughtful and ambitious renovation that will preserve and highlight Ben Abdallah’s original mural, which depicts an expanded underwater scene, complete with musicians awash in the soothing colors of the nearby sea.