Threshold

Daou is a multi-media artist whose work addresses contemporary political issues through the lens of language and communication. In 2003, with the onset of the American invasion of Iraq, Daou stopped painting and began to draw, making work that incorporated writing - for example, transcribing the Declaration of Independence phonetically in Arabic. Threshold is among the last figurative works she created before transitioning to language as her primary subject. Daou used delicate pencil lines to render two structures created from cards on adjoining sheets. The structures, which fill the sheets, appear monumental, but a house of cards is also an emblem of precariousness, a quality that is underscored by her use of tape. Daou connects the cards to her childhood in Beirut during the Civil War, when card games were a way to pass the time in bomb shelters.