Thirty-four-year-old Anees Maani studied architecture at the Building Academy in Volgograd, Russia. The foundation courses there included studio courses in sculpting, which caught his attention more than the discipline he intended to study. Returning to Jordan, he found that he wanted to pursue sculpting seriously, and in 1996, he started a two-year apprenticeship under Jordanian sculptor Nazih Owais' supervision.


Ten years and many group exhibitions later, I am talking to him as he is in the midst of preparing for his first solo exhibition, which is due to open on the 20th of October. I wonder what took so long for him to hold a solo exhibition of his work, and apparently it's quite a costly undertaking, but one that Anees is more than ready to handle. He is still preparing the various bronze, stone, plaster and wooden forms. He points to various pieces positioned throughout each room and says, "This one needs some final touches…" and "that one needs to be oxidized..." Additionally, he is going beyond polishing the pieces and giving thought to the ambience of the exhibition.


"…there's Yousef Kawar, a musician, who's going to provide ambient sound. I just told him to do as he likes. I trust- he knows- he'll do something good. During the exhibition the music will be playing, but it doesn't have anything to do with any one particular piece…"


Untitled, Wood, 2006, 110 x 55 x 55 cm, National Gallery, Malaysia


Exhibitions by serious Jordanian sculptors residing in Jordan are few and far-between, so this is a great chance for the artist - the youngest among his peers - to shine. Not that he is a stranger to recognition; three sculptures of his have been acquired by the Jordanian National Gallery of Fine Arts for its permanent collection, two of which are 'sitting' (as Anees likes to put it, as he's sitting and rocking in his chair) in the NGFA's Park – a fact of which he is very proud.


These Untitled pieces in the Jordanian National Gallery of Fine Arts Park serve as objects to climb and interact with for the children who play there.


No Titles, Please


As Anees is guiding me through the different rooms of his studio, showing me the various wood, bronze and stone forms, I ask him about the names of the pieces we pass along our path. I mostly get the answer "Untitled", and wonder about how he's going to catalog these pieces. I check myself before I start thinking about numbering systems and ask him why he does not like to label his pieces.


"If you put a title for a piece, especially a sculpture, you end up with, for example, somebody going, 'Oh, this is called Bee so it's a bee, and that's it'. However, when the piece is untitled, one can see a million other things…so it's better…you hear a million comments on the same piece. I get so excited about the possibilities."


We reach a room where he has concentrically arranged 16 pieces of unvarnished, carved wood. I ponder the monolithic sites I've seen in art history class and ask him what the significance of the arrangement is, if any.


He treads across the floor piled ankle-high with wood-shavings to the pieces and starts shifting them. "These are 16 pieces, you arrange them the way you want...Most of my work is not interactive. This will be one of the works that is interactive. This piece is mobile; other pieces are absolutely still, but [in the latter case] the movement is in the surfaces and the light's motion across them..."


Contempolithic


Maani's biggest influence is the rugged landscape of Jordan. He's involved with many projects relating directly to nature, including the book Field Guide to Jordan, which documents the different areas of this land's varied terrain through maps, colour photography and informative descriptions of sites to visit. He also designs copper jewelry www.bitsofpetra.com that is inspired by ancient art; particularly Nabataean art.


When I ask him what he thinks of people who think that primitive art should stay in the past, he scoffs a bit and says, "There is no message in my art, just 'if you like these shapes, enjoy them, otherwise, don't.'" He pauses, as if to reconsider, then continues, "I love that I have two pieces in the NGFA Park. Through those, maybe there are lots of kids who learn how to climb and play, and maybe when they go to Rum or Petra, they'll look at rocks differently, not just as solid masses and rocks - they'll find the surfaces inviting…possibly these rocks will be their introduction to art in general; specifically sculpture. Maybe they'll come back years later and go 'woah, I used to think this [sculpture] was so big, it looks so small now.' That's why I didn't put those two sculptures on pedestals simply to be looked at. They're there for direct contact. Jump on them! Play on them!" He breaks into a smile that seems to say "That's all there is to it. Don't analyze too much."


Rough to Smooth


Sculpting is seriously hard work, besides the research and sketching, there's the actual manual labour. Since Anees' latest works are all organic forms with very smooth surfaces, this process of revealing the shape within the shape can take up to two and a half weeks of 6-hour working days in which he is continuously carving, drilling and sanding.


For bronze pieces, there's also the oxidization process, which is a natural process, but which many sculptors choose to speed up by using acidic catalysts, of which there are a variety, to produce different coloured patinas.


For all the smoothing and polishing that they go into, Maani's sculptures are still approachable and natural - the creations of a down-to-earth man to whom art is all about the enjoyment of the process of making it.


All images courtesy of www.aneesmaani.com