Othello (paintings) Othello (paintings) Othello is a series of paintings executed in 1985 by Nabil Kanso. The subjects of the paintings are loosely based on Shakespeare’s tragedy "Othello". The series comprises 60 paintings dealing with themes of love, race, jealousy, betrayal, and evil. They depict scenes embodying compositions of figural and metaphorical imagery that may be seen as visually reflecting the intimate and dramatic relationship between Othello and Desdemona, and the tense and uneasy relation that passes between and through Othello, Desdemona and Iago. The "Othello" paintings depict a sequence of figural images with oil and acrylic on canvases and paperboards ranging
Othello (paintings) intense colors and violent movement of the brush seem to add emphasis to the nature of the subject. The embraces of the figures representing Othello and Desdemona are viewed by some as scenes that move "from tender and loving to confusion and rage." When the "Othello" were exhibited at the gallery space of a theater in Atlanta in 1985, the paintings were considered “too provocative” and were taken down the day after the exhibit had been hung. The paintings in the series are divided almost equally in two parts. The first part consists of works often depicting compositions of naked