BEIRUT.- Ayyam Gallery Beirut announces the opening of Impulses II, the solo show of Jordanian artist Hilda Hiary. This forthcoming event will showcase a new series of works that have been inspired by recent political upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa. Taking the vantage point of what she describes as a witness of this era, Hiary presents over a dozen new paintings in which figures become templates for raw emotion as they are suspended in non-descript settings that allude to both interior and exterior spaces, or private verses public realms. Resulting from a visceral sense of expression, these recent canvases are testimonies to the artists own reactions to the formidable events of the past year as the Arab world has been forced to enter a new phase in its modern history. In much of Hiarys work, these changes are captured by outlines of the female body in the form of many incarnations: as a mother, as a young woman who sneaks away to meet her lover, as a screaming prisoner, as a muffled Egyptian songstress Oum Kalthoum. Sometimes appearing as fragmentations, these representations capture an uncertain reality in which women remain steadfast in the face of adversity. Acting as a metaphoric terrain upon which patterns and brushstrokes take on the psychic weight of an engulfing turmoil, Hiary utilizes the emotive quality of abstraction to summarize the everyday impact of these recent times.