syria’s premier art gallery opens in dubaiimages.exhibit-e.com/ · khaled takreti fadi yazigi...

From the Syrian capital to the heart of the Middle East’s art market, Ayyam Gallery boasts a vast array of Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern art. The new Ayyam-Dubai gallery continues to promote the hottest Syrian art in a city that is breaking new ground through its cultural endeavours.

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From Damascus to Dubai, Ayyam Gallery has established itself as a powerful and passionate advocate of Modern and Contemporary Arab art. From time-honoured masters to young, upcoming talents, Ayyam’s stable of artists mirrors the richness, legacy and diversity of Syrian art. Since it first opened its doors in Damascus in November 2006, Ayyam’s name has become synonymous with an ever-expanding reach across the Middle East with its participation in regional and international art fairs, as well as the innovative First Ayyam Prize for Emerging Syrian Artists under their Shabab Ayyam Programme. An avid supporter of arts education, Ayyam has also published a vast number of artists’ books in the name of providing the region with a significant source of art literature. By publishing these books on their artists, Ayyam has helped to further promote the artistic legacy of Modern and Contemporary Syrian art. From the mesh of symmetry and faces of the renowned Safwan Dahoul to the abstract strokes and Sufi influence of the young Walid El-Masri, the artists of Syria have seen a dramatic rise in interest in collectors’ circles. Witnessing a new chapter through the launch of Ayyam-Dubai, the gallery continues to celebrate the wealth of Syrian talent and grow from strength to strength at their space in Showroom B11 on the Alserkal Warehouse Avenue in Al-Quoz.

T h e s t o r i e s b e h i n d t h eh o T T E S T Contemporary artists on the Syrian scene

N a v i g a t i n g the road to success for Modern and Contemporary A r a b a r t

In discussion with the key players of the Middle Eastern

art market

SyrIA’S PrEMIEr ArT GAllEry oPENS IN DuBAI

Samia HALABY «Yellow Spiral» 168X168cm Oil on Canvas 1970Halaby's «Yellow Spiral» to be exhibited during Ayyam Dubai's opening show

Damascus Mezzeh West Villas, 30 Chile Street, Samawi Building, Damascus - Syriat. + 963 11 613 1088, f. + 963 11 613 1087, e. [email protected], w. www.ayyamgallery.com

Dubai Showroom B-11, Alserkal Warehouse Avenue, Street 8.Al Quoz, Dubai - UAEt. + 971 50 578 5782, e. [email protected], w. www.ayyamgallery.com

Syria’s Premier Modern & Contemporary Art Gallery

Youssef ABDELKE Ammar AL-BEIKMouneer AL-SHAARANINihad AL-TURKAsaad ARABITammam AZZAMHoussam BALLANSafwan DAHOULWalid EL-MASRISamia HALABYThaier HELALMounzer KAMNAKACHEAbdul-Karim MAJDAL AL-BEIKAbdullah MURADMouteea MURADMohannad ORABI Yaser SAFI Kais SALMANKhaled TAKRETIFadi YAZIGIOmran YOUNESNassouh ZAGHLOULEH

Opening 31/5/2008

A Promising Future

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Art is helping to open a new chapter in the life of the Middle East and Arab world

At last, Modern and Contemporary Arab and Iranian art is beginning to enjoy the attention it so richly deserves. recognised as one of the hottest emerging markets in the world, second only to Chinese and Indian art, the masters of creativity from across the Gulf, levant, North Africa and Iran are becoming household names among the world’s most esteemed collecting circles.

So what prompted this wave of global recognition and why has it taken so long? There are always a number of factors that contribute to the birth of an art market. over the last 50 years, the Middle East and Arab world has witnessed the establishment of a sprawling network of private galleries, offering buyers the option of purchasing works from an ever-expanding stable of talent. This has built upon the established and more traditional model of arts patronage where artistic expression has been nurtured by prominent individuals who served as patrons to selected artists.

however, one cannot deny the impact that regional instability has had on the art market. The trials and tribulations of the post-colonialist era and the subsequent social, political and economic problems experienced by nations across the region during their

drives towards independence and thereafter (the effects of which are still continuing today), led to a paralysis that stunted the development of the art market.

It was the arrival of the auction houses in the region - the birth of the secondary tier of the art market - that has really prompted worldwide awareness. historically, pieces of Modern Arab and Iranian art were sold within the category of Islamic art by auction houses such as Sotheby’s in london. however, it was the launch of Christie’s (Middle East) in Dubai in 2005 that prompted the creation of a new sales category - that of Modern and Contemporary Arab and Iranian art. This separate and distinct classification encouraged other houses such as Sotheby’s and Bonhams to follow suit; setting up specific divisions and launching sales focusing on the region. This, in turn, led to collectors of other categories, such as Modern and Contemporary Western art and Islamic art, to expand their acquisition rationales to embrace this new category.

over the last three years, there have been a total of five auctions of Modern and Contemporary Arab and Iranian art by leading international auction houses, with other auctioneers such as Artcurial in Paris, France, and Compagnie Marocaine des oeuvres et objets d’Art (CMooA) in Casablanca, Morocco, also opening up to the new

his Excellency Abdul rahman Mohammad Al-owais, uAE Minister of Culture, visits the Ayyam Gallery stand at the inaugural haughton Arts and Antiques Fair Dubai.

05market. As a result, a growing number of artists from the Middle East and Arab world now have official sales records. The escalating sale prices of works have attracted the attention of a growing number of collectors from within the region and beyond who now appreciate not only the unbridled talent of practitioners but also the investment potential of art.

It was the arrival of the auction houses in the region - the birth of the secondary tier of the art market - that has really prompted worldwide awareness.

With the growing economic wealth of some countries (particularly those in the Gulf), art has become a symbol of social aspiration and an intellectual force to be reckoned with among those who possess excess financial liquidity. Matched by a pan-regional acknowledgement that it celebrates the multi-cultural heritage and plural identities existent within this richly diverse region of the world, art has become not only desirable, but an incredibly important vehicle of expression and self-determination.

on a more holistic note, Modern and Contemporary art is assuming an important role as a global ambassador for the Middle East and Arab world. While the ‘CNN-isation’ of the region has promoted a one-dimensional image, art is helping to change the international profiles of Iran and Arab countries; from nations riddled by conflict and disaster to lands steeped in a formidable cultural heritage and with an ever-evolving artistic expression that deals with a multitude of issues, subjects and concepts of a universal as well as regional relevance.

A growing number of artists from the Middle East and Arab world now have official sales records. The escalating sale prices of works have attracted the attention of a growing number of collectors from within the region and beyond.

The Middle East and Arab world have now realised that art is an integral ingredient for healthy and successful societies. The drive towards creativity has become the order of the day, bringing increased cultural tourism, and entrepreneurial thinking and intercultural communication. Who better to feed the roots of success than the artists? Museums of Modern and Contemporary art, galleries and other cultural institutions that celebrate indigenous creative talent are taking root across the region - from Iran to Algeria. Initiated by both governments and individuals, art is confronting audiences with what they don’t know, what they didn’t know or what they know in a way they didn’t expect.

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The first editon of artparis-AbuDhabi attracted thousands of art lovers from across the uAE and beyond who enjoyed myriad artworks, including those from the Ayyam Gallery stable of artists.

A prospective bidder views a work by Ayyam Gallery artist Fadi yazigi at a Christie’s auction of Modern and Contemporary Arab and Iranian art in Dubai.

lord Poltimore conducting the october 2007 Sotheby’s auction of Modern and Contemporary Arab and Iranian art in london, where Syrian Safwan Dahoul’s untitled work from his ‘rêve’ series sold for $69,813.

Louay KAYYALI «Then What» 172x190cm Oil on Canvas 1965Kayyali's masterpiece to be exhibited during Ayyam Dubai's opening show


Opening 31/5/2008




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Art and opinion

What role do you feel art plays in the Middle East?

Ali Khadra: Art has always been here. Today, it is flourishing more than ever. The window to art has really opened over the last few years and it is changing perceptions and promoting dialogue between cultures inside and outside the region. The advent of art fairs, auction houses and specialist media will surely stimulate greater government involvement in time. After all, the public and private sectors should join together not just for their mutual benefit but that of society as well. This will help to embed Middle Eastern art on the international scene.

Khaled Samawi: The world looks at the Middle East and sees a certain image. one way to see the true face of a country or a region is through its art. Even for someone like me who is from the Middle East, art from this region has opened my eyes. So before we show the world, we need to show our own people what art is all about and renew this history we have of collecting great works.

Bassam Kuzbari: Art comes at the end of a particular movement in a country’s life. The uAE and elsewhere have been busy with construction and economic development and now they are looking at how they can complement their achievements. The mixture of cultures in Dubai especially, will give birth to a new multi-cultural artistic expression - this is how art is born. The society and the environment are ripe for a major Middle Eastern art movement to begin.

lamees Gargash: Art has a key role to play in education. To fully understand art and its impact on society, one must be able to look at it from every perspective.

Is education and audience development the duty of the commercial art market?

hisham Samawi: There’s too much pressure on commercial galleries. The Middle East needs institutions. People in this region should be growing up going to museums. They are part of the fabric of society. Around seven million people are visiting Dubai these days and they are looking for new experiences. If they were to walk into a museum of Modern and Contemporary Arab art and see artworks, then the credibility of the artists would skyrocket. however, museums are not profit-making institutions; they rely on state subsidies.

Ali Khadra: We are living in a time of immense change. We are experiencing a renaissance of the arts in this region. Entrepreneurship as well as social entrepreneurship will come to the arts sector in time.

Where do you learn about the region’s art scene?

Khaled Samawi: I benefited a lot from Canvas and Christie’s.

Bassam Kuzbari: There is very little coverage of the arts in the mass media.

Khaled Samawi: Most daily Syrian newspapers dedicate pages to culture just as they do for sports. The same goes for across the levant.

lamees Gargash: In my personal capacity, I used to sponsor galleries but now I sponsor books. you search for an artist from this region on the Internet and most of the time you find nothing. Books educate collectors to know what to buy and not to buy. Not only will it help us (the collectors) but enable artists to gain widespread international appeal.

What is helping Contemporary Arab art to go global?

Michael Jeha: Internationally, a lot more people are sitting up and taking notice nowadays. It’s the quality of the art that has struck them the most and that is what will ultimately determine the success of Christie’s. The art has taken a lot of people by surprise; especially the international collectors. Christie’s is now seeing a growing non-Middle Eastern participation in the sales of Middle Eastern art; Americans, Europeans and Asians are all looking at Arab and Iranian art and adding it to their collections. It’s a rising trend.

Khaled Samawi: The more time passes, the more international my clientele at Ayyam Gallery becomes. over 60 percent of my clients are non-Arabs. They range from hong Kong to California. This year, we have probably had 10 big sales from people who came to Damascus on their private jets specifically to visit Ayyam.

International recognition grows as prices increase, wouldn’t you say?

Michael Jeha: People want to know that the market is serious. During the first few Christie’s auctions of Middle Eastern art,

Collectors lamees Gargash and Bassam Kuzbari join Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Canvas Ali Khadra, Christie’s (Dubai) Managing Director Michael Jeha, Khaled Samawi and hisham Samawi of Ayyam Gallery (Damascus and Dubai) to discuss the state of the Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern art market.

people wondered whether it would actually survive. After four sales, there’s a lot more acceptance that this market is here to stay.

Khaled Samawi: There has been a 600-700 percent rise in the price of Syrian art in the last two years. There has never been demand like this before. There is a misconception: people say Christie’s is the reason that prices are increasing. But the prices at my gallery are higher than at auction and my stock is still going out the door the moment it comes in.

Michael Jeha: This is normal. It is mirroring international practice. If you look globally, the prices you traditionally pay at galleries are higher than at auction. That is what it’s like in the Western, Chinese and Indian markets. It will only be a matter of time before it is mirrored in the Middle East.

lamees Gargash: If collectors can see that the price of an artwork is steadily increasing but it is not yet at its absolute maximum, they will still buy. As long as you know that when you buy a piece at $200,000 you know that it will rise to $400,000 in three years time, then we will buy because it’s worth it. of course, I buy pieces that I like but there is that added thrill of knowing that it has gone up in price.

When does an emerging market become an established market?

Michael Jeha: It’s a culmination of factors. Certainly, time plays its part. We are still well away from being a mature market in the Middle East. you have to go through cycles. We haven’t experienced stability yet and we have not had a downturn yet.

Bassam Kuzbari: We see some people who have never been interested in art now appearing at the auctions and bidding. In general, there is an immaturity on the collector’s side. An emerging market is an inefficient market. The art is there but the education and the definition of what people want is not really there. With time and education, it will mature.

lamees Gargash: The artists have to establish themselves too. Every artist can create one or two good paintings but can they do it over a sustained period of time? We are not interested in one-hit wonders.

Ali Khadra: These artists need to make an impression on the Western curators of the leading museums and institutions. When you have quality artists and good works in leading international collections, people start to aspire to collect these works.

Khaled Samawi and hisham Samawi of Ayyam Gallery (Damascus and Dubai), Christie’s (Middle East) Managing Director Michael Jeha, collector Bassam Kuzbari, Editor of Canvas lisa Ball-lechgar, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Canvas Ali Khadra, and collector lamees Gargash.

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Is global recognition the only way that Middle Eastern art can gain validation by the West?

lamees Gargash: At the moment, we don’t have a figure like Charles Saatchi in this region. hopefully in 10 years time, we will have big collectors like the rockefellers and the Guggenheims.

Khaled Samawi: The art market needs to get more institutionalised especially in Dubai which is the centre of the Middle Eastern art market. When you get a good number of galleries representing artists in a professional manner, things will begin to change.

Ali Khadra: To redress this imbalance, we need to see more involvement from governments and businesses in the Middle East as well. There are corporate and state collections in the West and private individual collections go on tour. This needs to start happening across the Middle East.

Michael Jeha: We do need to see more companies buying artworks, building collections, and commissioning artists for public display. But let us not forget how far we have come in the last two or three years!

So the players of the Middle East art market need to be more professional?

Khaled Samawi: once a few galleries show that they are not afraid to spend money to invest, the benchmark will rise, and other galleries will follow suit. We are still young, emerging and on the fringes of the global art scene. We cannot copy the West; we need to surpass them in order to catch up.

lamees Gargash: There needs to be a professional code of conduct practiced; which sets a benchmark for artist representation, gallery commissions, and other legislative issues.

Khaled Samawi: For example, how do you determine a fake? you just don’t know because there is no archive on the older artists of the Middle East. one of the reasons why auction houses are relying on foreign and not regional sources for consigning older works is that they can be more confident that

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the pieces are genuine. I represent 20 living artists who can validate their works because that way, I don’t put my reputation at risk.

What does it take to trust a gallery?

Bassam Kuzbari: It’s a long-term relationship between a client, a gallerist and the artist. A gallerist stands in the middle of demand and supply; unless he is trusted by both sides, it is not going to work.

Khaled Samawi: you have to define what a gallery is. you have ones that are basically real estate projects; they rent their space to artists against a commission but then there are others that really push their stable of artists.

lamees Gargash: I only deal with a few galleries that know the artists’ bodies of work in their entirety. It’s a personal relationship and it takes ages to develop. I have been on the phone with Ayyam Gallery for a long time. I trust Khaled’s judgement, his taste and what he shows. I like the fact that he is not ‘selling’ me anything; he doesn’t ‘push’ a sale on me. Collectors are too busy, we want someone who we can trust and who will give us the best. Khaled chooses the best that you can afford and the best from each artist.

What stops a client pushing the gallery out of the way to go straight to the artist?

lamees Gargash: I don’t like competing with my gallery. I don’t like to know that they are holding works back for themselves or their family.

Bassam Kuzbari: It’s ethics. Ayyam Gallery is nurturing their artists: Khaled is providing the right environment to enable the artists to flourish and create. We need more gallerists like Khaled in the market.

how can artists ensure that they gain the recognition they deserve?

lamees Gargash: By being in a Christie’s catalogue, an artist gets exposure that he/she could never have dreamed of. If you are talking about emerging artists, it could take three or four years for a gallery to sell their work at prices that are beneficial for both parties. Some artists are fickle; they get impatient and leave after a year.

Khaled Samawi: I tell my artists that if they can find another gallery who can represent them better, then I will let them go - I won’t be a burden on their success. over the last two months, some galleries have started wanting to make exclusivity contracts with artists. They have been calling me wanting a copy of my contract. I don’t have one. I have no wish to take an artist to court and there is no court in the Middle East that could enforce it. The relationship between a gallery and an artist is a partnership; it’s as simple as that.

“We don’t have a figure like Charles Saatchi in this region. hopefully in 10 years time, we will have big collectors like the rockefellers and the Guggenheims.”

lamees Gargash

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When it comes to art today, nothing is more fashionable than to talk about ‘the market’ and to refer to works as ‘investments’. Ayyam

Gallery Founder, Khaled Samawi used to play the world’s money markets and win, and now he is looking to apply his talents to changing the face of Syrian Contemporary art.

Ayyam Gallery opened its doors in the upmarket Mezzeh district of Damascus in November 2006. “We may be young but we have matured fast,” says Samawi, who has established an impressive track record of exhibitions, a formidable stable of artists, a high profile young artists’ prize, a publishing side arm and an impressive client base. “I look at this not as a gallery,” says Samawi, “But as a showroom. I’d even go a step further: I was a private banker my whole life and this gallery is a private bank. These artworks are simply good-looking securities. you put them on your walls instead of putting them in a safe.”

on a personal basis, Samawi started collecting art back in 1997 when he was living in Europe. “Every December we would get our bonus at work and every February I would be buying art,” he recalls. “I dealt with two or three galleries and bought mostly foreign [non-Arab], living artists. I always wanted to meet the artists, whether they were established or emerging. I get more attached to art if I get to know the artist.”

By the time he was 38, the private banker retired and returned to his homeland of Syria. he sold his house in Switzerland, packed up his family’s belongings (which included 300 works of art) and moved to Damascus. “I was starting to put my artwork on the walls and I thought, instead of making an office, why not make a gallery?” Samawi says, making the road to Ayyam Gallery sound probably easier

than it was. “I used to tell my wife that when the kids go off to college, I will build two boutique hotels; one on the coast and another in the mountains. That was my dream… then I met all these artists.”

“This gallery is a private bank. These artworks are simply good-looking securities. you put them on your walls instead of putting them in a safe.”

Familiar with the art of Europe and the uSA, Samawi had little knowledge of the Modern and Contemporary art scene of the Middle East, so he began visiting artists’ ateliers around Damascus. Samawi may not have had the art background when he first entered the art market but he certainly had the business know-how; a talent one doesn’t always see. “As opposed to traditional Middle Eastern galleries where you buy from the artists as cheap as you can and sell to the clients as high as you can; the way I look at it is that the artists are my partners, the auction houses are my partners; Canvas is my partner; and my clients are my partners. If the clients support me then I have more money to promote the art that they are buying. It’s a mutually-beneficial circle. I am helping to raise the value of their portfolio.”

With the increasing price of oil in the Middle East, Samawi is confident that his sales force will be very busy over the next few years encouraging those with “excess liquidity” and “a hunger for luxury” to buy Syrian art. “late 2008/Early 2009 is when it will click. Art will begin to appear as a luxury good,” says Samawi.

Some may reel from the money-talk and prefer to engage in more pleasingly aesthetic discourse but the truth of the matter is that works of art - whether acrylic on canvas or bronze sculptures - are termed ‘commodities’ in the nasty, big, wide world. If the Middle Eastern art market is to command as much respect and recognition as those of India

and China, then it needs people like Khaled Samawi - people who have the sensitivity and understanding but also the ability to translate the altruistic as well as fiscal value of art - into the parameters of an Excel spreadsheet. Ayyam Gallery traverses two worlds - art and business - and its owner is hell-bent on bringing them together.

A large proportion of Ayyam Gallery’s sales are to clients who live outside Syria in the Middle East, Europe and Gulf. “Every week to 10 days, I have a couple - they may live in Dubai or Doha - come to Syria specifically to buy art for their home.” Just as the nation’s diaspora is playing a major role in its ever-growing private banking sector, so it is having a positive influence on the country’s art market.

Samawi is also confident that Ayyam Gallery (Damascus and now Dubai) will attract Western buyers. unlike other galleries in the region who have, in the past, tried to reach out to European and American art buyers only to retract in failure, Samawi believes that now is the time when they will bite. “When I go to the top galleries in Europe, I see nothing of value; while here there are 50-60 top artists whose works are the same price as a print or reprint in the uS. The Europeans will come.”

“There’s a huge debate about the business of art…There is a belief that an artist should paint for himself and not for the people. But what if you paint for yourself and people like it? Isn’t that better?”

A cornerstone of Ayyam Gallery’s marketing strategy is to establish a firm presence in the international art fairs (appearing at four to five a year), from where a lot of the world’s collectors buy art. “Collectors don’t buy on impulse. They will go to Basel and see a piece by a Korean artist and like it; then they will go to Frieze and see a similar piece by the

same artist; the third time they see his work at a different fair, that’s when they decide to buy.” Make the calculations and Samawi’s rationale makes perfect sense. “A solo show means that 200-300 people will see an artist’s work,” he says. “While at a fair, 7000-8000 people see what you have. That is similar to 10 shows for an artist. Now, that’s exposure!”

“As opposed to traditional Middle Eastern galleries where you buy from the artists as cheap as you can and sell to the clients as high as you can; the way I look at it is that the artists are my partners, the auction houses are my partners; Canvas is my partner.”

Ayyam Gallery may well be private but its owner understands the importance of artistic initiatives that in the end will have an indirect influence on the sale price of its role call of artists. one such project is Shabab Ayyam, a competition for emerging young Syrian artists under the age of 40. out of 150 applicants in its first year, Ayyam Gallery selected a shortlist of 22; 42 people voted in a secret ballot during an unforgettable gala dinner at The Four Seasons Damascus (where Ayyam also exhibits its art), at the end of which the three winners were announced and the $10,000 prize money awarded. In addition to the prize, Samawi signed up some of the Shabab Ayyam shortlist to his gallery. “The fact that some of these artists are living in their ateliers really moved me. So I signed a contract with 10 of them. For five years they will have some kind of security; a stable income plus a proportion of the sales we make,” he says.

While contracting artists may be common practice in the West, it is fairly new to the Arab region and not one that all artists and galleries welcome. In fact, Ayyam Gallery is one of the first to introduce the concept. “If I knew ‘exclusivity’ was going to cause such a

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Making the Market

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n one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world, a new approach to art is taking root. Ayyam Gallery seeks to promote the best in Syrian Modern and Contemporary art to the world by representing some of the country’s top established and emerging artists.

Ayyam Gallery (Damascus) exhibits two works by Mouteea Murad (left) ‘Wasp’s Tricker’ and (right) ‘Wasp’s Maze’. Both 2007. Mixed media on canvas. Each 145 x 145 cm.

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big fuss, I would have named my gallery ‘Exclusivity’!” laughs Samawi, who has now signed exclusive global contracts with 20 artists in the gallery’s first year of operating, many of whom are already on the road to international renown. “There’s a huge debate about the business of art. here in Syria, most artists come from a Socialist or Communist background: There is a belief that an artist should paint for himself and not for the people. But what if you paint for yourself and people like it? Isn’t that better?” he asks rhetorically.

After all, Ayyam Gallery is not about to invest time and money on grooming artists only to see the fruits of its labour disappear as soon as their art hits the jackpot. If Samawi’s hunch is right, Middle Eastern art is about to do just that. “When I was a banker, I used to be a growth investor; not a value investor,” he explains. “When you

buy deep value, you need a catalyst to move it. For example, if you buy cheap, you need something to happen so that it doesn’t stay cheap for the next 20 years. Middle Eastern art has deep value and the catalyst has been a combination of Christie’s, Canvas and galleries. So now we are entering a growth phase. I know from experience that when something has been deep value for a long time, it is going to shoot up a lot before it corrects itself.”

There is no doubt that Samawi is glad to be free of the currency markets and revels in his new career as the owner of one of Syria’s premier art galleries. But what do his friends from his banking days think about his new business interest? “They are jealous,” he says. “They say, ‘That Samawi is up to something and I want to buy’.”

ARTISTS REPRESENTED BY AYYAM GALLERY

youssef Abdelké

Ammar Al-Beik

Mouneer Al-Shaárani

Nihad Al-Turk

Asaad Arabi

Tammam Azzam

houssam Ballan

Safwan Dahoul

Walid El-Masri

Samia halaby

Thaier helal

Mounzer Kamnakache

Abdul-Karim Majdal Al-Beik

Abdullah Murad

Mouteea Murad

Mohannad orabi

yaser Safi

Kais Salman

Khaled Takreti

Fadi yazigi

omran younes

Nassouh Zaghlouleh

Works by emerging artist Walid El-Masri at Ayyam Gallery (Damascus).

Behind the scenes with the founder of Ayyam Gallery, Khaled Samawi.

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As one of the world’s hottest emerging art markets, Middle Eastern artists are finally getting the international recognition they deserve. As the appetites for art increase, the regional art scene must find ways to continue feeding that hunger. In a region experiencing change, it is the responsibility of individuals and institutions to nurture the future of artistic expression.

The Ayyam Prize for Emerging Syrian Artists, which was initiated in 2007, has done more than help Ayyam Gallery establish itself as an advocate of art. Beyond the commercial environs of the primary market, the gallery is also fulfilling its social responsibility to invest in the future and to ensure that Syrian Contemporary art continues to have a powerful and imaginative voice on the international stage.

With over 150 applications, the selection committee for the inaugural Shabab competition had the unenviable task of short-listing 22 artists and eventually choosing three finalists. The popularity of the contest testifies to the wealth of

artistic talent and creative innovation that Syria has to offer. In his review, art critic Asaad Arabi wrote, “These young talents are not ungrateful or neglectful to the legacy of the Arab master-painters of the 1950s as much as they are rebellious against the subservience of apprenticeship.”

Culminating in an exhibition and a glittering gala ceremony at The Four Seasons Damascus, the judging panel awarded first prize to hasko hasko, (born in Afreen Sharran in 1973). “hasko is definitely on the radar,” says Khaled Samawi, founder of Ayyam Gallery. “I look forward to seeing his new work.” runners-up Abdul-Karim Majdal Al-Beik (born in Al-hasakeh, 1973) and Walid El-Masri (born in Jaramanah, 1979) have since joined the Ayyam Gallery stable of artists, marking an important first step in their professional careers. other works received commendations such as a still-life by othman Moussa (born in Zabadani, 1974), which stood out from the mostly Expressionist pieces by the other competitors. “The incentive to exhibit at Ayyam Gallery was a worthy enough prize in itself,” says Moussa. “If they’re good enough, Syrian artists now know that they have a window to the rest of the world.”

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The Shabab Ayyam

Awarding Emerging Syrian Artists

T h E I B D A A AWA r D

Ayyam Gallery widens the scope of its involvement in

Syrian art with the launch of a competition for school

children. “We were recently approached by the

Damascus chapter of the International Junior

Chamber of Commerce [JCI] to sponsor an art

competition for children aged between 14 and

18,” says Khaled Samawi, founder of Ayyam Gal-

lery, “And we really loved the idea.” Public schools

usually don’t have the time or space to devote to a

good art education programme, so the collaboration

between JCI and Ayyam will be an unforgettable

experience for these kids.

The First Ayyam Prize for Emerging Syrian Artists

First: hasko hasko

Second: Abdul-Karim Majdal Al-Beik

Third: Walid El-Masri

ShABAB AyyAM 2007

opening night at ‘The First Ayyam Prize for Emerging Syrian Artists’ exhibition at Ayyam Gallery (Damascus) in May 2007.

Nominees of the inaugural Ayyam Prize for Emerging Syrian Artists dressed to impress at the gala dinner and award ceremony at The Four Seasons Damascus.

Ayyam Gallery has become a popular meeting place for young collectors and emerging practitioners as the Syrian Contemporary art market gains momentum.

Frame by Frame

“Where is the newness?” asks Ammar Al-Beik. “Fairuz, old Damascene houses, Nizar Qabbani...they are all clichés!” As a cinematographer, Al-Beik should be at the forefront of innovation but he works in a field that still finds it hard to refrain from praising past artistic glories, sadly to the expense of the present. “Did you know there’s a new musical trend called Trip-hop? Not hip-hop, but Trip-hop?” he asks with an enthusiasm he can barely conceal. And so he asks again where the newness is.

Don’t misread Al-Beik’s intentions; he has no wish to divorce himself from who he is or where he has come from. “It’s not necessary for an artist to be someone who leaves behind his family and the people who need him for the sake of art.” After all, turning a blind eye to reality would only lead him towards, “A selfishness that I will not indulge,” he says. Al-Beik lives a precarious balancing act; he is pursuing the cutting-edge of artistic expression while also giving his care to the traditional environment of his home.

Al-Beik’s mastery of light, captured beautifully in ‘light harvest’, possesses an innate and continuous sense of rhythm and passing time. “It’s about the mill next to my home, I hear the sounds from my room; the workers coming and going in the early morning, carrying their sacks of wheat. This is my world,” he says. having received no official training, he was quite surprised that his three-minute film received the 2000 liege Mayor’s Award in Belgium. “I felt like filming but I had no idea what I was doing, and that it has a name called ‘cinematography’,” he says. “I was just having fun.”

‘I Am the one Who Brings Flowers to her Grave’ premiered at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival in 2006. “I could not believe it! Sitting in a cinema with the likes of Brad Pitt, and everyone else there to watch my film! It was the first Syrian film ever to enter the competition!” remarks Al-Beik,

who continues to be blown away by the memory of the event. unpretentious yet totally driven, Al-Beik is modest yet confidently unstoppable. The fact that he has achieved international recognition despite having neither an educational foundation nor connections within the industry is testament to his talent.

Al-Beik’s spirited enthusiasm is coupled with a serious devotion to hard work. “No matter what they say, making a good film is not about group effort,” he says. “It is about the single-minded clarity of the director’s vision... and his skilfulness in staying true no matter what obstacles arise.”

‘Video Games’ is the title of his latest series of three-minute portraits of fellow artists in Syria. Within the context of an exhibition, Al-Beik also presents images of digitally manipulated sketches by artists from the previous generation; creating a visual dialogue between two separate worlds; and juxtaposing renowned Syrian artists, louay Kayyali with Fateh Moudarres for example.

Moving to Al-Beik’s photographic practice, his works are carefully designed compositions, often possessing a narrative dimension as well as abstractions of colour and pattern. In his static examination of relationships, large images frame small ones, fringe images allude to central ones, colours contrast with black-and-white and repetition with singularity. Works such as ‘The Museum Warden’, ‘Sokourov’s Mother and Son’, ‘The lost City’ and ‘Abu Ghraib’ are executed in his medium of choice - ultra chrome ink print on canvas - which, despite the chemical stench, is the only one that gives the colour intensity he desires. Ishtar (or Aphrodite) sculptures appear frequently in his work. “They are nudes...antique stone sculptures from the National Museum in Damascus; probably the only legitimate example of the naked body in Syria,” he says. “There’s a reality to nudity that has nothing to do with shame or disgrace. It’s about being real.” Defining what makes a person real is open to interpretation. In Al-Beik’s artistic practice - from film to photography – he unveils to the viewer a person and a location in every story through a thoughtfully manipulated collection of memories.

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The Scenic Compositions of Ammar Al-Beik

AMMAr Al-BEIK

Born in Syria in 1972, Ammar Al-Beik developed an early passion for photography. he soon left his studies at the university of Damascus, Department of Business Administration, and became a full-time photographer, participating in collective exhibitions inside and outside Syria. In 1995, he became a member of the International Federation of Photographic Art (FIAP) in Switzerland, and one of his photographs (‘The Milkman’) was chosen to be published in the ‘The Earth 2000’ book.

In 1997, Al-Beik shifted to cinematography. he produced and directed his first short three-minute film ‘light harvest’, which awarded him the liege Mayor’s Award in Belgium in 2000.

over the last eight years, Al-Beik has produced and directed 10 films, has participated in more than 50 international film festivals and has been awarded a number of prizes. Among them was The Venice 63rd International Film Festival’s Prize - official Selection, orizzonti Competition - which was presented by The Documentary Film Association of Italy, for his film ‘I Am the one Who Brings Flowers to her Grave’, which had its premiere at the Venice International Film Festival in 2006.

Al-Beik’s favoured subjects are people and their interaction with places. he is particularly taken by the impact of silence on a deserted place and is considered one of the most cutting-edge and innovative artists in the region.

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(Detail) Ammar Al-Beik. ‘The lost City 1’. 2008. ultra chrome ink print on canvas. 108 x 180 cm.

youssef Abdelké is a draughtsman and an engraver, but above all, a perfectionist. he leaves nothing to chance. The subject is always simple yet the detail is always extremely well-studied. The work is almost bare but the contrasts are outstandingly rendered. The object may seem banal but the canvas is never silent. To understand Abdelké, one has to travel with him in time in order to understand how one has achieved such

superior craftsmanship.

Abdelké spent the first 15 years of his life in Qameshli, a town where nothing of any interest ever happened. The eldest son of a politically engaged father, his family did not prepare him for art. Nevertheless, Abdelké had an instinctive love for drawing; filling one exercise book after another with sketches and spending hours copying images, reproducing landscapes and inventing portraits and even cartoons.

A childhood of spontaneous creativity made him realise that he wanted to become a draughtsman. “I knew that I didn’t want to do anything else,” he says. “I don’t know where that feeling came from.” Except for a lebanese cartoon magazine and a Syrian satirical paper, the young Abdelké had little contact with contemporary cultural expression. “During the years I spent in Qameshli, I only saw two exhibitions; one was by hanna El-hayek. I was 10 or 11 years old at the time but I still remember my reaction. I looked at the paintings and thought there was no unity in his work - no real harmony.” Despite a distinct lack of art books and magazines, the adolescent quickly began to acquire a critical eye.

Abdelké’s life changed amid difficult yet undisclosed circumstances, when his father sent him, his mother and two siblings to the Syrian capital, Damascus, for their safety. “I remember the letter my father wrote to my mother after we had arrived in Damascus. It was like a will, as if he was telling her what to do and how to take care of us,” recalls Abdelké. “I read the letter with a lot of emotion and when I finished, I was another person. From an adolescent, I had become a man.”

Abdelké was convinced that he had to take care of his family and find work quickly. When he saw an advertisement for calligraphy studies at the Centre for Applied Arts, he immediately thought that doors would open if he immersed himself in the age-old tradition so he enrolled and began his classes in calligraphy, drawing and graphic design. Eventually, his father was able to leave Qameshli and join the family. Abdelké went on with his studies. learning the rules of drawing made him realise that a work of art or a poster or a book was the result of a deeply intellectual process. Slowly, he began to understand that art was a “serious matter” and not just “something you were good at doing.”

In 1971, Abdelké enrolled at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the university of Damascus and majored in engraving. After graduation, his nascent artistic career was cut short when his involvement in political activities led to a two-year prison term. In 1981, he moved to Paris where he continued his studies at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, later undertaking a PhD in Plastic Arts. his thesis was entitled ‘The history of Caricature in the Arab World’; a subject close to his heart. “My interest in caricature came from my father, who was far more interested in politics than in art,” he recalls. over the past 25 years, Abdelké has drawn for many newspapers across the region.

The artist works on the contrast between the object and the vast space that envelops it with mastery, but the atmosphere that emanates from his charcoal works on paper is never the same twice. The shadows are different and the tones are varied. Abdelké projects himself in each piece and uses ordinary objects as mirrors of his own sensibilities. “The work of art exists only when it is loaded with human emotion, and when it is rendered with all its sincerity,” he says. Abdelké’s objects are never devoid of meaning: the dead fish seems alive; the woman’s shoe is worn with walking; and the empty box in the empty space poses a multitude of philosophical questions. For Abdelké, moving from political to spatial expression has been a cleansing process. The dramatic can still be found in many of his drawings - from an animal’s skull bound with ropes to a dismembered fish’s head, or a dead bird with a knife behind it - as Abdelké pursues the credo that less is very much more.

“I get up. I cook. I sleep. I paint,” says Fadi yazigi. “Art has no purpose.” once somebody tries to give it a purpose, it becomes a tool, and no

longer art in its purest form. “It is not easy being a painter like me,” he admits.

yazigi paints with quick, black brushstrokes on colourful backgrounds. his rawness of hand captures the vulnerability of mankind and the indecency of existence. his works are typically untitled, yet their style is distinctive; naive yet severe. A cacophony of wide open eyes, broad smiles, gesturing hands and limbs greet the viewer. how deep these smiles actually go is up to you to decide.

yazigi makes no claim to grandeur. he seeks clarity. And clarity, by definition, must be simple. he experiments with vigour, constantly searching for new combinations

of media. yazigi has created paintings on surfaces ranging from two-metre canvases to pocket-sized papers; using oil, acrylic and ink. With pottery and ceramic plates, he has explored the relationship between the movement and expression of his characters. his reliefs are extremely tactile whereas his bronze sculptures have an ominous, weighty presence that belies their petite size.

his approach seeks to capture that transient moment of first impressions. Each piece is pinched, poked, pushed or patted just once for it to take part in an entire sequence of events. yazigi’s devotion to “the first touch” is crucial to his concept of art. “If I make changes or additions, it is no longer the original expression,” he explains.

yazigi’s paintings played an important part in the inaugural exhibition series at Ayyam Gallery in Damascus. The background of his canvases can be left plain, or drenched with colour; often psychedelic,

“like candy wrappers,” he says. The figures curl around in a nautilus shell-like pattern. Creating rhythm and movement, they dance like musical notes. “There are no heroes,” yazigi affirms. “The people behind the scenes are the most important.”

Bronze sculptures are yazigi’s most favoured form of expression (his bronze boy ‘Che’ surpassed pre-sale estimates at the october 2007 Sotheby’s auction in london; while two of his paintings were sold in Dubai at the February and october 2007 Christie’s auctions). Since they are three-dimensional, his sculptures are the only works he actually names; as if they were born the embodiments of the concepts he explores. The smooth, bronze surface is a crucial part of his attempt to capture immediacy and an unhindered impression of serenity. half-man, half-animal and dwarfish in dimensions, yazigi’s figures reveal an unhinged psychological dimension. ‘It’s me!’ is the title of one smiling human head

with coffee-bean eyes reaching out with a bent neck from a snail’s shell in a moment of curious self-assertion. “My sculptures have complex personalities,” yazigi explains. “Slightly sickly, deformed, diminutive people and yet they keep their smiles. They keep hoping for something better - optimistically, even stupidly.”

yazigi is now composing a series of paintings in his inimitable style of portrait panels. unlike before, his canvases are checkered and the boxes alternate between portrait and prose. But who are his subjects? random people, people he met at the grocery store, friends of friends he was introduced to at dinner parties, strangers he has walked by on the street. Next to each portrait, yazigi writes how each person describes his or her view on life. This is a snapshot of the spontaneous and unpremeditated; whatever encapsulates the human psyche at that given moment; as immediate as ink on canvas.

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reduced to Essentials

Crude Expression

youssef Abdelké Fadi yazigi

youSSEF ABDElKÉ

Born in Qameshli, Syria, in 1951, youssef Abdelké has lived and worked in Paris for the last 17 years. The graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus also has a diploma in etching from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris and a PhD in Plastic Arts from the university Paris VIII.

Since 1968, Abdelké has created numerous posters, slogans and book covers and has written no less than 30 children’s books. he has exhibited across the Middle East and Europe and his works can be found in the Institut du Monde Arabe, the British Museum, the Kuwaiti National Museum and the National Gallery of Fine Art in Jordan.

FADI yAZIGI

Born in lattakia, Syria, in 1966, Fadi yazigi studied sculpture at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus. Since graduating in 1988, he has been working with amazing discipline, 10 hours a day, seven days a week.

yazigi has had exhibitions in the Middle East, Europe and the uSA, and has executed commissions for individual as well as corporate collectors. he recently participated in the Delfina Foundation’s artist-in-residence programme in the uK. yazigi’s works have appeared at auctions of Modern and Contemporary Arab art by Christie’s (october 2007), Sotheby’s (october 2007), and CMooA (March 2008), surpassing their pre-sale estimates with panache.

Fadi yazigi. untitled. 2008. Ink on canvas. 150 x 170 cm.(Detail) youssef Abdelké. ‘Pots 2’. 2006. Charcoal on paper. 110 x 147 cm.

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Wall reversal

Walls drink in the history of a place,” Abdul-Karim Majdal Al-Beik explains. “Every alley is bound to have a ‘Saeed

loves Samira’ kind of graffiti on its walls, a spray-painted arrow to some place, a ‘For rent’ sign, ‘Allahu Akbar’, or the daubs of letters and numbers by the neighbourhood’s children.” The walls are their palimpsest and the daubed drops of paint, their ink. Amid the cracking plaster lie the hints of hidden layers. “I am trying to portray the passage of time,” he says.

Al-Beik’s creativity reflects a wisdom and sensibility beyond his years. he was born and raised on the outskirts of Al-hasakeh, in a tiny village consisting of seven houses built of mud, brick and straw. “The cracked walls come straight from my village, Murik, which is a Kurdish word that means ‘bead’, like the Arabic word ‘kharazeh’. It is such an ancient land, Syria, and in my village up in the North, thousands of beads are in the earth, among the stones, like pebbles. It’s some sort of archaeological traditional jewellery, but they are so widespread that the village is named after them.”

Al-Beik has walked around the streets of old Damascus, observing and feeling the walls; how they differ from those of his childhood but how they are also vessels of reminiscence. “A wall is not just a wall, it becomes a store for memories,” he says. Al-Beik collects the funereal announcements (Na’wat) that are pasted on the walls of the city. “Is it possible to find a wall without traces of an old ‘na’weh’, or perhaps a freshly pasted one, which no doubt is stuck on top of an older one?” he asks.

Al-Beik notices how each wall possesses a different character that over time, changes shape, texture and colour thanks to the sun and the rain. Some are saturated with religious content, commemorating a blessing or warding off ill-will. others are laden with instructive municipality notices or numbers that nobody understands except for the administrative officials who placed them. Then, there

are walls bearing the graffiti of frustrated adolescence.

When Al-Beik returns to the studio after his stroll, he infuses each canvas with the essence of his surroundings, revelling in the individuality each piece offers.

Careful to maintain an authenticity in his expression, basic wall-building materials are Al-Beik’s tools. Colours are used, but minimally; rather, black, white, grey, a few earthy colours and a sky blue. To reconstruct the passage of time, he applies several layers to each canvas. As ash falls upon charcoal, starch and plaster, cracks appear as if they are, “Forbidden thoughts trying to break out,” says Al-Beik, who applies myriad markings; from the dripping wash of diluted paint to childlike scratches and scribbles, a black spray-painted arrow or a random number.

“I try to paint spontaneously, without deliberation…like graffiti…like kids,” Al-Beik says, in a bid to needlessly rationalise the stick-figures, doodles and scrawled numbers that he etches or sprays on his canvas walls. “Children can’t write smoothly. They usually write numbers backwards. I like to reflect that naivety in my work,” he says.

The immediate sense of the passage of daily life on the walls has made Al-Beik’s work strangely appealing. A paper taped to his studio wall reads ‘The walls alone know our secrets’, which was written by Imad Mustafa, Syria’s Ambassador to the uSA, and one of Al-Beik’s closest friends and collectors. This nota bene is just one of many, some composed by Al-Beik. “If walls be the canvases of madmen, then these madmen are my teachers,” he once wrote.

Al-Beik is now exploring tents; also absorbers of human history. his grandfather’s ‘shadir’ (a thick, beige fabric with a rope-like texture) is far more than mere cloth. “It holds the fingerwork of the people who wove it, the breath of the people who slept in it, and the wind of the desert that blew through it.

Abdul-Karim Majdal Al-Beik Inverts a Symbol of oppression

ABDul-KArIM MAJDAl Al-BEIK

Born in Al-hasakeh, Syria, in 1973, Abdul-Karim Majdal Al-Beik’s first paintings were inspired by the memory of his birthplace. he painted from the memory of the villages in Northern Syria, and the colours of the townswomen’s clothes. however, displacement drove him to explore the memory of the walls in these forgotten villages and elsewhere. According to Al-Beik, walls are archives and indicators of street life and town history.

After Al-Beik’s graduation from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus in 1999, he received a Master’s degree (with honours) in oil painting in 2001. he went on to participate in many collective exhibitions in Syria, France, Jordan, lebanon, Iraq and Iran. Al-Beik’s first solo exhibition was held at the Arabic Cultural Centre in Al-hasakeh in 1998, which was later followed by a show at Al-Sayed Gallery in Damascus in 2001, and another in 2005 at Shell’s Cultural Club in Damascus.

Al-Beik’s works can be found in a number of private collections throughout the Middle East and Europe. The recipient of several prizes, he received the silver prize of the fifth lattakia Biennal in 2003; first prize at the ‘Mirror of the Syrian-British Cooperation’ exhibition held at the British Cultural Centre in Damascus in 2000; first prize for oil painting at the second youth Art Exhibition in Damascus in 2001; and a diploma of merit in the ‘Think With your hands’ competition organised by the Spanish Cultural Centre in Damascus in 2000. last year, he picked up the second prize in Ayyam Gallery’s competition for emerging Syrian artists and was subsequently invited to join this stable of artists.

Abdul-Karim Majdal Al-Beik. ‘Wall’. 2008. Mixed media on canvas. 170 x 150 cm.

After nearly three decades, the famed Mouneer Al-Shaárani returned to Syria; back to the roots that inspired him to embark on his journey to become

one of the region’s greatest innovators of Arabic calligraphy.

Born in 1952 in Damascus, Al-Shaárani did not have the fortune of picking up a familial fervour for calligraphy. A hefty combination of childhood curiosity and instinct was enough to lure him into the welcoming arms of title designs and book illustrations.

Nevertheless, to truly understand any great art form, every apprentice needs a master. Determined to acquire a solid foundation in the techniques and tradition of calligraphy, Al-Shaárani went to Badawi Al-Dirany, the greatest Syrian calligrapher of all time. “once he’d seen a sample of my work, he told me to bring two copybooks, one large and one small. he wrote one line and then told me to copy it on 50 pages.” After a week of what many would think was exhaustive and irrelevant rote learning, he submitted his reams of script. once corrected, Al-Dirany decreed that he repeat the process again and again.

Many today would be abhorred by this bygone learning method but Al-Shaárani fervently believes that this was the best way for him to master the art of calligraphy. “Al-

Dirany tested me for my passion and honed my craft through discipline.” The young student remained in Syria and studied with Al-Dirany until his death. With his teacher gone, he continued his studies under his own steam and taught himself through books and illustrations, just as he had done as a child. A period of intense observation and study followed. “I soaked up every little detail wherever I was; museum artefacts, architecture, engravings, all sorts of things.”

Works are embossed with a lyrical philosophy as seen in their titles - ‘The wound does not hurt he who is dead’, ‘Serenity is a fruit from the tree of wisdom.’

In Al-Shaárani’s work today, colours reverberate through the meaning of a sentence, the movement of the script and the emotion of the piece. For the artist, each must complement the other in perfect balance in order to reinforce both meaning and message.

he glides effortlessly between a range of calligraphic scripts - Kufi Nisabouri, Kufi Kayrawani, Kufic Eastern, Square Kufic, Maghribi, Thuluth, Diwani and Taaliq. Working on silkscreen with China ink and gouache, composition begins with finding the right phrase or sentence that reflects his perspective on the world at the time. The poetic impact of the literature he chooses speaks for itself. Works are embossed with a lyrical philosophy as

seen in their titles - ‘The Wound Does not hurt he Who is Dead’.

one of the pillars of each piece is the strong bond between the philosophy of Arabic calligraphy and the aesthetics of art. “I focus on how the eye absorbs the image. Viewers think about the abstract structure of the piece first and can find the meaning afterwards. But like any artwork, it must catch your attention. Each time you revisit it, you should see something different, something new.”

At first glance, Al-Shaárani seems a contented man, comfortable in the mastery of his field. But scratch below the surface and one sees a hungry spirit that has not changed since childhood. “There are so many things I still want to achieve. The history of Arabic and Islamic calligraphy permeated every aspect of our Arabic heritage… it is everywhere we look. I want to bring that back.” Al-Shaárani’s dream is to renew the practice of the Arabic calligraphist as an artistic chameleon.

No one can deny that Al-Shaárani practices what he preaches; to build upon the foundations of tradition and place it within the context of the modern world. Although he respects the role Islam has played in the history of calligraphy, he is more than aware of the value that the practice has for secular society. “My works are coming from poetry, philosophy, Sufism, the New Testament as well as the Qur’an; sources

that touch the spirit and liberate calligraphy from the golden prison of preservation.”

After all, why should history be kept in a glass box? The heritage stifled today only blossomed because it was given the freedom to grow. People like Al-Shaárani appreciate the role he and others have to play in allowing the path of evolution to continue. otherwise, our history, its meaning and relevance will become lost on future generations.

“My works are coming from poetry, philosophy, Sufism, the New Testament as well as the Qur’an; sources that touch the spirit and liberate calligraphy from the golden prison of preservation.”

Few can deny that Al-Shaárani has had a major influence on the movement of Arabic calligraphy. his publications exploring six types of Arabic script are mandatory reading for students of calligraphy. In the words of the artist, hussein Bikaar, “he is regenerating an expressive style and fashioning a language which is capable of survival and self-determination.” his unshackling of context and his re-examination of bygone scripts has injected new vigour into this practice. “I hope I can establish a new movement which builds the relationship between Arabic calligraphy and other forms of art,” he says. Few can deny that, for Al-Shaárani, the writing is already on the wall.

Kais Salman possesses a unique eye for figurative painting. “I paint because I need to, because it helps me express what I see,” he says. round, full-bodied

obnoxious women occupy the full length of a canvas; their voluptuous bodies and round faces sing out. Bodies are rendered in squashed proportions and outlined in a dynamic buzz of black, linear expressionism. The layers of black, white and grey lines that fill in their faces, bodies, and even aura, point directly to an intertwined complexity of emotion and desire. A solitary item of clothing - the underpants of a fluorescent bikini perhaps - appears in solid colour while the background stands in severe contrast with the physical, mental state of the subject, heightening the energetic chaos that exudes from these figures. “I like to make their ugliness a sort of beauty,” says Salman.

Salman ingenuously captures individual states of mind through an unusual painting style and intuitive sense of perception. Boredom, delight, arrogance, curiosity,

exhaustion and self-satisfaction are all evident. his cast of characters stare out from worn faces and podgy bodies; all far too self-obsessed to notice that they have become the victims of fashion. Somehow, Salman captures the facial expressions of these desperate egos steeped in demise, exhaustion and false hope. “They are beautiful because their ugliness is making apparent a truth that is hidden,” he says. Compassion and contempt do not usually go hand in hand, but the idiosyncratic subtleties that Salman gives his subjects maintain a tense connection between both sentiments, resulting in an immersed, intense portrayal of twisted humanity.

There is definitely something striking about Salman’s paintings. his works are not pretty yet they are heavily satirical amid the messiness of execution. The viewer immediately recognises this and shares a moment of collusion with the artist’s mockery and even self-mockery. Implicated by existence, the viewer sees himself part and parcel of the society Salman portrays. “The human being is my focus; their bodies, their facial expressions, their

clothes. They are the tragic heroes of today’s consumerism,” he says. True, the coiffed hair and high heels reflect a desperate desire to conform. Their posture echoes a classical image of beauty, yet their proportions are far from ideal.

“The ratio of 1:5 appeals to me,” says Salman, referring to the length of the whole body being equal to five times the length of the head. “In ancient drawings, the size of a figure is proportionally related to its social status. Kings are always the largest size; slaves are the smallest. The figures I am drawing are part of today’s self-centred society. They think they’re so big but they are actually so small.”

Salman is a quiet, polite and thoughtful man. he has compassion for these figures, and depicts his characters, amid a spirit of joviality, as if they are the butt of jokes. Whether it is harmless fun or an accusatory interjection is up to the viewer to decide. Most of the people who collect Salman’s work are themselves members of the social elite. The obsessive consumerism and stereotypical haughtiness of his farcical

paintings seems to ignite great pleasure among them. “Maybe it makes them laugh, maybe it makes them feel something, I don’t know,” he says, “I am just a regular guy, reacting to what is going on around me.”

Not all Salman’s paintings deal with the impact of materialist culture. A series of paintings he painted as a reaction to the car-bombs that shook the city of Beirut over the past three years is overwhelmingly powerful. “I was watching the news,” he says by way of explanation. The disturbing images he witnessed on the screen provoked Salman to create a body of large, Abstract Expressionist paintings that release the shock of senseless violence onto the canvas through a rapid flurry of red, black and great brushstrokes.

No doubt, the world around Salman is changing and the feelings he expresses in his work explore the full realm of responses to the chaos of the world today; anxiety, indulgence, acceptance and rejection. “Syria didn’t used to be so crowded, so polluted,” he says, perhaps referring to morality as well as the environment.

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renewingTradition Cynical SynthesisMouneer Al-Shaárani Kais Salman

KAIS SAlMAN

Born in 1976 in Tartous, Kais Salman graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus. Salman quickly moved from Abstraction to personification, surrounding colour and embracing a monotone world. Turning his experimental mind to the material, he went on to work with iron, canvas and other media, before arriving at his current style of artistic expression.

Salman has participated in a number of collective exhibitions with galleries in Syria (including the French Cultural Centre in Damascus), Tunisia and elsewhere.

In 2006 Al-Khandji Gallery featured his work in a major show as part of the celebrations for ‘Aleppo - Islamic Cultural Capital’. Salman also won the first prize in the fourth youth Art Exhibition in Damascus in 2003. his works can be found in collections in Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Tunisia and France.

MouNEEr Al-ShAÁrANI

Born in 1952, Mouneer Al-Shaárani studied calligraphy under the great master Badawi Al-Dirany and later attended the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus. his prolific work has been exhibited across the world and can be found in the collections of the Malaysian Museum for Islamic Arts and the British Museum. Al-Shaárani worked as a calligrapher as well as a book and print letter designer. In addition, he is also a published author, art critic and calligraphy historian.

Mouneer Al-Shaárani. ‘My resolution rejected but what Discretion and reason required; My Delicacy, but What Passion Demands’. 2006. Gouache on paper. 120 x 200 cm.

Kais Salman. ‘Fashion Series’. 2008. Mixed media on canvas. 180 x 180 cm.

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Silent Elegance

The Distinctive World of Safwan Dahoul

Safwan Dahoul. ‘rêve’. 2007. Acrylic on canvas. 180 x 180 cm.

“Who is this woman you’re always painting?” is a question that people always ask Safwan Dahoul. “I am not painting the woman; it is the blackness that’s around her - the space,” he says. Space, or rather, the relationship between the human being and space, is the notion that occupies Dahoul’s artistic mind. “Am I drawing the space and which makes a figure appear within? or am I drawing a figure, and the space is a by-product? Which is the negative and which is the positive?” he answers his own question, “Most of the time, I feel I am drawing space - how the space is everywhere, surrounding us, even inside us.”

Dahoul’s canvases are dominated by black, with shades of grey and beige. he explains this disinclination towards colour as a natural response to his surroundings; a reflection of his personal life. “haven’t you noticed how the colours in Syria are so subdued? Even the green of the trees is pale,” he says, “I don’t ever remember seeing people wearing bright colours here. Growing up, nobody wore yellow or blue or pink. I don’t remember a red

car, ever. Even now, among the younger generation, who are supposed to wear whatever they want to wear because they are still young, I challenge you to find colour.” Stylistically and conceptually, this colour minimalism is an important aspect of Dahoul’s artistic practice. “less colour means clearer ideas, less colour asks for a more sensitive perception from the viewer,” he explains. “other painters can do bright colours, and I have full respect for them, but it’s just not me.”

“I am not painting the woman; it is the blackness that’s around her - the space.”

The images that appear in Dahoul’s paintings are soulful, dreamy, seekers of silence. Masks are a prominent feature in his work. They hint at an exploration of the psyche, a questioning of the self, or the different layers of self, even the separation of body and soul. “Painting is not poetry, it’s not music. I want to express the inner essence of the human being; not with word or sound, but with shape, line and colour.” There are certain elements that appear in Dahoul’s works such as a table, a chair, a woman, a couch or a frame. “repetition is not a bad thing,” he says. “I am fascinated by this combination...I can capture so many hidden feelings by keeping my colour

palette and my subject matter the same. They are really not the same at all.”

No wonder then that ‘Dream’ has been the title of his work for a long time now; “20 years ago I started painting a series I called ‘Dream’, and I had no idea that I would keep on doing it. I can’t help it. They’re all ‘Dream’,” he says in a quiet self-reflective voice. “Sometimes it’s just a gentle way to cover up the harshness of life. Sometimes it is a call for silence, Sometimes, it is a game...The space changes, the characters change, but the title is always ‘Dream’.” The central figure, often a woman, is simultaneously majestic, distant, tender and fragile. A luminosity glows behind his constructed world of shadows.

In his most recent exhibition, the woman he draws appears several times curled up in a foetal position, closing in on herself (or maybe the blackness is closing in around her). her arms or fingers are often crossed and sometimes her eyes are vacant, while in other works they glance out invitingly, hinting at a possibility of liberation from the closed space. What is constant is the viewer’s response – to protect this mysterious woman.

Dahoul considers his paintings to be “a daily diary” of his life; continuous, personal, spontaneous. The repetition of elements is

as natural as he is. his inspiration comes from the process of creation. his work is not the culmination of pre-meditated ideas. The question arises of how his paintings can be a personal diary when the iconography is usually a female figure? “I believe in the spirituality of things,” he explains, “The surrounding blackness could be a man embracing the woman. Maybe the couch that carries and embraces her is a man or maybe the bed of nails...” The emotional force of Dahoul’s paintings is stronger and deeper than they might appear at first glance, similar to the depth of sadness that lurks behind the artist’s jovial façade.

overlapping geometric shapes are a distinctive element in Dahoul’s work, often resulting in a flattened perspective that emphasises the expanse of the canvas, which in turn creates the illusion of depth. Dahoul enjoys the interplay between circles and squares, sharp angles and smooth curves, which is particularly apparent around his figures’ jaw-line, neck and shoulders. The corporeality of a wicker chair, table or couch also incites interplay between the abstract and the realistic. Every once in a while, Dahoul allows a tiny pair of angel wings to appear. like a blessing, a promise or reprieve, they materialise on the woman’s shoulders, or appear near to her heart.

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SAFWAN DAhoul

After his graduation from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus, hama-born Dahoul moved to Belgium where he undertook a doctorate in Plastic Arts at the higher Institute of Plastic Arts in Mons. This experience nurtured a deep attachment to the great Belgian and Dutch masters of Bruegel, Bosch and Knouf.

Dahoul’s works have appeared at the Christie’s (February 2007), Sotheby’s (october 2007), and Bonhams (March 2008) sales of Modern and Contemporary Arab Art in Dubai and london, exceeding pre-sale estimates each time. In March, one work by Dahoul sold for $135,000 at the Compagnie Marocaine des oeuvres et objets d’Art (CMooA) auction of Modern and Contemporary Arab art in Casablanca, Morocco. Today, he enjoys great popularity among international art collectors and his works can be found in both public and private collections worldwide.

Dahoul has had solo exhibitions in Europe and the Middle East. his solo show at Ayyam Gallery, Damascus, in March 2008, sold out on the opening day. Considered as one of the most distinctive characters on the Contemporary Arab art scene, Dahoul’s elegant portraits - with their clear lines and smooth characters - convey a tendency towards Cubism, while reflecting an authenticity that springs from life itself.

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Intensity & nnovation

Walid El-Masri, a tall, soft-spoken, young man, comes from the town of Jaramanah, which lies on the Ghouta outskirts of Damascus. over the past five years, it has lost its trees, increased its traffic and expanded its buildings at a rapid rate. “I knew Jaramanah before it became a crowded, concrete city,” he says, “When it had orchards and rivers and houses made of stone.” As a boy, El-Masri would often escape school punishments and take refuge in the forests of his birthplace. his defiant will-power is still rooted in a quiet self-confidence; a deep-seated conviction that tells him learning exists beyond the walls of classroom con-

vention. “I used to carve patterns into the river bank and then wait for the water to slowly fill up the channels of my drawings. I watched everything. I was fascinated by the way the water rose,” he says. By witnessing nature, El-Masri quickly learnt that “everything changes with each passing moment,” and that, “repetition is never the same.”

Fast-forward 15 years (after a formal art education and having indulged in a frenetic spell of stylistic experimentation), today El-Masri spends his time exploring the notion of chairs. he slowly builds up his paintings from a blank canvas to a meaningful entity that captures the moment. “Sure, you go to school and get a broad exposure to different styles, but the things that stick to you are the things that are similar to the way you already are,” he says. El-Masri’s current fixation with painting chairs may seem outwardly repetitive, however, each one is entirely unique. he revels in placing emphasis on their intangible differences.

El-Masri defines the process of painting as a condensing of a greater reality. his works have a vanishing point that lies beyond the surface of the painting. “It is a Japanese style,” he explains. “It instinctively made sense to me.” his chairs are depicted from obscure angles; as if they are floating in space or truncated by the canvas’s edge. They are rendered with rough and multi-layered contours with a signature emptiness that fills the lower part of the canvas and allows the work to resonate.

“Imagine having a place where you can forget everything.”

It might be a challenging notion to follow, but El-Masri needs chairs - or rather, the simplicity of chairs - to be able to explore the more elusive meaning of existence. “We like to recognise an artwork, and to know what we see,” he says. “The chairs are a continuous project. yes, you will recognise the subject of a ‘chair’ but it is not really about that anymore. That’s the beauty of painting; I no longer need to explain.”

El-Masri is creating a conceptual unit. “Visually, an image is either simple or complicated,” he says. “A circle looks like a simple image, but it is a complicated one. It could mean an orange, a ball or a planet. A chair looks complicated but it is actually very simple. No matter how you draw it, it is just a chair. Any horizontal line on a set of vertical lines can be recognised as a chair.” El-Masri’s chairs are dissecting the semiotics of imagery. he invites the viewer into his world through the use of a prop, or rather, a key, so as “not to be lost in the darkness.” El-Masri’s world is a purely visual, graphic and guttural place. “Imagine having a place where you can forget everything,” he says. “That is what it feels like to paint.”

understanding this ever-evolving expression is the combination that unlocks El-Masri’s art. “Either we [artists] sink into a daily routine where we lose our perception, or we sink into a solitary life of creation where we lose touch with our friends,” he says, recalling how he had once made a phone-call and realised it had been weeks since he had heard the sound of his own voice. “I can’t be balanced if I don’t paint. Painting is a solitary activity.” Just as El-Masri’s art isolates him, it also connects him to the rest of the world.

Walid El-Masri

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WAlID El-MASrI

Born in 1979, Walid El-Masri insists on having the chair as a subject for all his works, giving it different connotations as a central or an abandoned item. he asserts that his use of repetition raises a different question each time, related to human existence.

No stranger to acclaim, El-Masri received several prizes during his studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus. he won the second prize for photography at the ‘Colours of Damascus’ workshop in 2006. one of his paintings won the third prize in Ayyam Gallery’s inaugural competition for emerging Syrian artists, The Shabab Ayyam 2007.

El-Masri participated in many collective exhibitions in Syria, lebanon, Jordan, Italy, Spain, Iran and Turkey. he also participated in a number of workshops, such as ‘Discovering Modern Art’ which was held in Paris, France, in 2005. he also participated in the 2006 summer academy of Darat Al-Funun, Amman, Jordan, at the end of which he received a certificate in oil painting.

A solo exhibition at the French Cultural Centre in Damascus in 2006 was followed by a second at the Syrian Cultural Centre in Paris in 2007. Now signed to Ayyam Gallery, El-Masri‘s work is set to spread its wings even further as his career progresses.

(Detail) Walid El-Masri. ‘Chairs’. 2008. Mixed media on canvas. 180 x 180 cm.

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Artistic Intuition

re they birds? Are they in harmony or conflict? Is it a mathematical equation or an everlasting trance? Thaier helal continues to pay tribute to the old adage, ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,’ and he wants viewers to find out why.

At first glance, helal’s paintings are provocative. They challenge the viewer to decipher an ambiguous, encrypted message. The repetition of seemingly identical elements arouses questions. The outward appearance of these subjects within a grid-like mathematical structure intrigues, and that is precisely what helal is after. “I let the viewer get trapped within my artwork. I want him/her to deduce and figure out the repetition. It’s open to debate and discussion and as a result, I’ve allowed them to enjoy this and develop an emotional connection to each piece,” says the Syrian-born artist.

Sufi philosophy is at the core of helal’s work. The contemplative repetition found in Sufism drives helal’s artistic practice, as he attempts to infuse each work with multiple meanings. “I take indirect, vague symbols which are more oriented toward spiritual Sufism. They’re far from reality and yet realistic at the same time. Singular elements in my work cannot be contained or explained in one sentence,” says helal. “They’re far too big for that and there’s a massive world of meaning.”

Perhaps another aspect which finds itself in helal’s work is his collection of childhood memories. having grown up in a small village North of Damascus, near the ancient town of Maaloula, helal spent his childhood on his family’s vast farm. The wide open fields nurtured his love for large canvases and the nature that surrounded him cultivated a passion for painting trees and birds. “There were no mountains in sight. This sight made a major impact on me and continues to do so. It’s not intentional; perhaps it’s spontaneous but it can definitely be felt in my work,” he says.

“I prefer not to talk about war in my work. Politics is in direct contradiction to our lives. The people in power can lead and govern others in a way they choose. We see this and can’t do anything about it, so we express ourselves in the only way we know how.”

Each year, helal’s grandfather would purchase new clothes for the entire family in preparation for the annual trip to the city. Beyond these yearly excursions, helal had no knowledge of urban life. one morning in 1973, helal and his younger sister woke early to play with a pile of watermelons that had been left in the yard. Suddenly, a fleet of Israeli warplanes appeared in the sky, and began to drop bombs. The frenzy that ensued left an indelible mark on helal. “At first, I wondered who these people were and why these destructive objects were coming down from the sky. I was confused; my childlike innocence was colliding with hard-hitting reality. Even after the war was over and normality resumed, I never forgot the large gaping hole that destroyed our serenity,” he says. The incident of that morning in 1973 found its way into helal’s art; and was particularly prevalent in a series that he exhibited in 2000. “It was a general theme. I don’t like to work on one specific incident. I created what looked like bombs exploding, things collecting and then combusting,” says helal.

The ongoing political turbulence within the Middle East has spawned a gamete of expression from the current generation of Contemporary artists. While helal is an archetypal example of this ‘movement’, he prefers not to make it his primary focus. “I prefer not to talk about war in my work. Politics is in direct contradiction to our lives. The people in power can lead and govern others in a way they choose. We see this and can’t do anything about it, so we express ourselves in the only way we know how,” he says. Triggered by the horrors of the second Palestinian Intifada, helal decided to create a massive artwork for the Sharjah Biennial in 1999. his tribute to the 200 slain children was a staggering 50 metres wide and 13 metres long. The piece was the result of a youth workshop; made for the children, by the children. Fellow Syrian artist and art critic Talal Moualla created a short film using details of helal’s artwork juxtaposed with footage of the Palestinian atrocities during

The harmony of Thaier helal

ThAIEr hElAl

Born in Syria in 1967, Thaier helal graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus, Syria, in 1991. he has been a member of the uNESCo International Association of Art for the last 11 years.

his highly distinctive style combines both talent and technique, and presents a new concept of Modernism. In his paintings, one finds a universe of repetition fused with contraction then distension, attraction then rejection.

A keen advocate of arts education, helal has lectured in fine art since 1997, when he joined the teaching faculty of the Sharjah Arts Institute in the uAE, where he continues to live. A participant of three consecutive Sharjah biennials, helal has also exhibited at galleries and cultural events across the Gulf, as well as in Italy, Belgium, Egypt and Iran. In 2006, he took part in the eighth DFEWA International Symposium of Modern Art in Carei, romania.

helal has also received numerous commendations and awards for his work from the international arts community including the prestigious ‘The Grand Golden Award’ during the 2005 Tehran International Biennial.

over the years, helal’s collector base has grown in line with his reputation. Now represented by Ayyam Gallery, one hopes that more museums, cultural institutions, and private collectors welcome his work into their collections.

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the Intifada. The film was broadcast on television and received an award at the Cairo International Film Festival.

While the powers-that-be continue to pull the region’s strings, helal is content with the direction that the Middle Eastern art scene is currently taking. “Support for Arab art is changing. Previously it had been neglected but in recent years, it has been given more importance. We now have magazines like Canvas and more galleries opening up and encouraging artists,” he says. All the same, helal possesses a cautious optimism. “The Middle East is rich in emotional artistic expression. We preserve this and place

importance on it. It’s almost as though this is our form of therapy in confronting the major issues at hand.”

In the quest to perfect the projection of his inner self, helal had destroyed many paintings - only leaving those he truly felt mirror his soul. his latest work for Ayyam Gallery opens a new chapter in his artistic practice and integrates an assortment of colour and tonality. “The world is more colourful. I maintained the rhythm and have incorporated my relationship with trees that stems from my childhood. They are a symbol of the circle of life,” he says. By tuning into his instincts, helal is creating harmony on canvas.

Thaier helal. ‘Four Seasons’. 2008. Acrylic on canvas. 280 x 280 cm.

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Dancing to life’s Melody

The Indefinable Abdullah Murad

Abdullah Murad. ‘Abstract’. 2006. Mixed media on canvas. 180 x 180 cm.

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rt is like a dance. you keep m o v i n g and mov-ing to

whatever is going on,” he says. “When I dance, I go crazy with joy!” It is no surprise to hear that Abdullah Murad is a fan of the rio de Janeiro Carnival. “Sometimes we miss that in our culture,” he says. “We focus too much on sadness - on expressing negative emotions.”

Murad is an instinctive Fauvist and enjoys a carefree and experimental relationship with painting. he is a serenely quiet man, a grandfather although far from elderly, and seems to have retained an inner joy akin to that of a child. he has an innocence that is primitive, simple and untainted. ‘Improvisation’ is the sounding bell of his soul, manifesting in an array of Abstract Expressionist works that exude energy and freedom. Grasping the beauty of Murad’s paintings is not instantaneous; time is needed to embrace the torrent of colour and motion in his works. “A painting takes time to reveal itself,” he says. “It does not reveal its secrets at first glance,” he says.

Murad’s creative process is as complex

as the understanding of his practice. he applies layer upon layer of colour; often in thick impasto, other times thin and translucent. he plays with textures and surfaces, creating collages of newspaper cut-outs bound together by waxy paper glue. his brushstrokes oscillate from frantic and condensed to considered and sparse. Forget symmetrical alignment, Murad never pays claim to a hidden or evident configuration; rather he seeks to express the tensile relation that exists between balance and imbalance; that pregnant potential of unexpected movement. “Art is not imitating nature,” explains Murad emphatically. “I am inventing something that does not exist.”

“We all have a daily obsession to draw, to paint, to dance,” he says. “It is the release of positive energy.” Murad does not see himself as a siphon for human expression; his role as an artist is not exclusive or elitist; and he resists categorisation. “I don’t like to be thought of as a painter,” says Murad, whose three children have inherited his creative impulse. his son, Fadi, has chosen to study graphic design. “I am happy that Fadi is independent, building himself a new direction, and trying to get out of my influence,” he says with a satisfied smile. “I like that about my son.”

Murad’s dreams, desires, fears and frustrations pour onto the canvas without much deliberation for there is no philosophy behind his work; it is simply the expression of life. “I am playing,” he says. “It is a mystery where it comes from and where it is going.” Murad resists the temptation to over-analyse the process of painting. “I just like to let things happen spontaneously,” he says. “I don’t like to burden the playfulness of art.”

“An empty space with just one off-centre line that indicates the branch of a tree, for example, can be an electrifying force.”

his ability to visually communicate subconscious desires is a language that, by definition, seeks to express that which the logic of words and phrases fails to capture. Critics and collectors admire Murad’s work because he is constantly breaking the boundaries. his paintings possess a tactile force that stimulates more than just the single sense of seeing. his lines can compress like a springboard in the corner of a painting; ready to catapult into the open space. others are frantically compulsive, or fragile interventions dancing amid a world filled with commotion. his colours collide and crescendo unpredictably and

he is constantly invoking an expansion of space. This sense of openness can be put down to Murad’s fascination for the aesthetics of Chinese painting. “An empty space with just one off-centre line that indicates the branch of a tree, for example, can be an electrifying force,” he says.

one who indulges in such energetic improvisation is difficult to define. “I get bored quickly,” he says. “I find that my paintings are not limited to a single style.” Murad is always adding new elements; he explores different styles or revisits existing lines of enquiry with renewed vigour. yes, he has done portraits, landscapes and sculptures, but Murad finds himself entranced by Abstraction. A recurring question might sit in the back of his mind, and the mere fact that there is no answer is the wheel that turns the creative process; it is, “like spiralling,” he says, “like dancing.” There is no end to Murad’s experimentation. “I need to break whatever becomes structured.” out of destruction comes rebirth. “Art is health! Art is life! It is dynamism, struggle, and especially joy,” he says. For Murad, the notion that an artist must be a darkly brooding, introverted character is simply disgraceful. “Why should artists add darkness to this world?” he asks, “Art is like lighting a candle.”

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The homs-born graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Damascus, Syria, has been refining his unique style of Abstract Arabesque for more than three decades now. his work has been exhibited in several galleries and cultural centres throughout the Middle East and beyond, and has generated substantial critical acclaim. Murad’s latest exhibition at Ayyam Gallery, Damascus, in March 2007 was an undeniable hit, and coincided with the release of a 150-page monograph showcasing the masterpieces he has painted in the last 20 years.

Considered one of the most celebrated Abstract painters in the region, Murad’s paintings can be found in collections across the world. To date, two works have been auctioned by Christie’s in their sales of Modern and Contemporary Arab art (February and october 2007), dramatically surpassing pre-sale estimates. When asked about the meaning of his paintings, Murad says, “I am not the one who decides; each painting is a living creature. She’s the one to decide and explain her own meaning.”

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Towards the light

My paintings come to me in flashes,” says Syrian-born Mouteea Murad. “Even though they are Abstract compositions, they

are very much alive. They can easily be made into a circus!” Such total immersion in the joyful vividness of colour, line and shape has not always been Murad’s driving force.

he began his career as an artist filled with rebellious existentialist anxiety. The contrast between pieces created then and now is clear. one of his earliest works consists of a collection of charcoal on paper depicting devils, jokers, and skulls - the disturbing sort of images that are frankly ugly and can only provoke disgust, dismay and cynicism. “See how ugly they are? I actually sold them!” he says with an ironic smile on his face, referring to his 2005 exhibition at Ashtar Gallery entitled ‘Tasa’ulat’. In Murad’s opinion, the show revealed a philosophical aesthetic that used form to delve into existential issues and dig deep into our ethical values. It posed the question, “Why do we look down and see devil’s feet even though we’ve been blessed with hearing the tales of the prophets? Why do you forgive us when our lives are your blood and your tears?”

Murad displays one image after another of distorted and absurdly smiling faces beset with hollow eyes. Even he still can’t quite understand the rapturous reception such works brought on. “Maybe depression rings a familiar tone in people nowadays,” he remarks.

“Even though they are Abstract compositions, they are very much alive. They can be easily made into a circus!”

Those days are over as Murad’s brilliantly colourful style today is testament. Is it possible that the painter of those dreary diabolos is the same man who now drenches his canvases in a jubilant cacophony of colour? “I went through that black phase and came out the other end. I felt I could finally let it go and do something new,” he says.

“Maybe if I had not succeeded, I would still be stuck there. Now I can confidently say that those days are gone, and gone for good.”

Murad is now married with two children and teaches art at a private school in Damascus. “I went into colour once I had children,” he recalls, standing in the middle of a room surrounded by bright fluorescent tubes and jars of paint. “After five years of monotone, I felt like I had forgotten how to do colour,” says Murad, who is bent on exploring the spectrum to the maximum. And so began his vibrant venture into the rich world of colour.

Murad is a keen observer of natural harmony. he plays with the elements of the colour wheel, mixing primary and secondary colours and juxtaposing opposites; red next to green, blue with orange, yellow beside purple. “They contrast each other to the extreme, so you see them all at full strength,” he explains.

“After five years of monotone, I felt like I had forgotten how to do colour.”

his playful canvases delight in Abstract expression. Viewing a Murad painting is akin to listening to the sound of improvisational jazz or the sound of laughing children. Colours are intense and plentiful dancing amid spirals and swirls in a random patterning that celebrates line, movement and above all freedom. “I am an optimist now,” he says. “For me, depression is no longer the way.”

As prolific in his dark period, so is Murad in his colourful era, working with a tireless devotion. “I am totally inspired by colour,” he declares with an inexhaustible energy. The titles he gives to some of his paintings reveal the creativity behind his lateral thinking; ‘Firecrackers’, ‘The hot Night’, ‘Abu Ali’s Mood’, ‘Wasp’s Maze’, ‘Paper Airplane’, ‘Musical uproar’ and ‘Binomial Equation’. “All the senses feed into each other,” he says, “Just as the arts do.” Pointing to a canvas he is currently working on, still untitled, emblazoned with triangular shapes in bright pinks, yellows and greens, he asks, “Wouldn’t this be a great textile for a fashion designer? It shows hope.

Mouteea Murad Emerges from Darkness

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MouTEEA MurAD

Murad moved from his birthplace of homs to the Syrian capital to study at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus. having received second prize at the third youth Arts Exhibition in Damascus in 2002, and a diploma of merit at the fifth lattakia Biennial a year later, is testament to his nascent potential.

The 31-year-old artist has participated in numerous collective exhibitions in Syria and elsewhere. Solo exhibitions of his work were held at Ishtar Gallery in Damascus in 2005 and Zara Gallery in Amman, Jordan, in 2006. having experimented with a variety of artistic styles, Murad now revels in creating cacophonies of bold colour and has already caught the eye of critics, many of whom are confident that he has a promising future ahead.

Mouteea Murad. ‘hope’. 2008. Acrylic on canvas. 180 x 180 cm.

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forget colour wheels and just do it - paint,” says Mohannad orabi. Painting is a pleasure, plain and simple. his studio is an anarchic mess of paint and canvases. he also keeps his vinyl records in a traditional brass cauldron, and plays them on an antique gramophone he bought as a student. “I like things with soul,” he says. “I love African masks because they are so spiritual... every dab of colour, every carving on them has a deep meaning that has to do with their belief system.” orabi may not understand exactly what these are, yet he intuitively senses their significance. “A small, wild flower making its way through a crack in the cement in a forgotten street corner can be more beautiful and more mesmerising than a meticulously designed, landscaped garden,” he says, in a bid to explain that art should not be too orchestrated; rather, it should be random, innocent and free.

orabi has a distinctive style of painting. A stylised character dominates his canvases, all of which he titles ‘Self-Portrait’. “Sometimes she turns out to be feminine,” he says of this character, “sometimes masculine, sometimes childlike.” Nevertheless, they are all self-portraits in that they capture a certain

state of being. “They don’t look like me physically, sure, but their mood is mine,” he says. Sometimes the character sits cross- legged on the floor, or curled up in a foetal position to sleep. other times, they play with a yoyo, meditating, waiting for a lover, seeking to fly or to float. Their eyes are always the largest feature; almond shapes in bold black lines that pull the viewer in like a magnet. “I like that shaky sense that comes out of the repeating of broken lines; as if the image is not quite frozen on the canvas, not stable, but tense, vibrating with the possibility of movement.”

orabi’s paintings do reveal a tendency towards curves, vertical lines shooting upwards, and small horizontal dashes that hint at fallen shadows. “Two arcs cross each other in two places and suddenly you have an eye,” he says. “It’s like poetry. Poetry is not just about sentimentality, it is also words, grammar, metaphors, sounds, hyperbole, rhythms. It is everything.”

“The time for exhibitions, auctions and sales - that is the gallery’s concern. My world is my studio and my creative release.”

Body-language also plays a key role in his works; the relationship between arms and legs that expresses a state of mind. “Before I begin a shape or a line, there is a craziness of colour. I just play with

buckets of paints - without any plan or intention - simply as a release,” he says. “you could ask me why I chose yellow, for instance, but I wouldn’t have an answer. It is just something that happens.”

orabi sees painting as a lyrical and creative process where the final work is almost secondary. “I am always immersed in what I am doing at the moment. old paintings I forget, once they’re done,” he says. “The time for exhibitions, auctions and sales - that is the gallery’s concern. My world is my studio and my creative release.”

According to orabi, there are two ways of reacting to a painting. The first way is by examining it structurally, and analysing the relationship between the lines and the shapes and the colours. “you might look at a painting this way and say, ‘yes, it is a balanced painting - check!’” The other way has nothing to do with these kinds of calculations and formal analyses. “Just get a random guy off the street and stand him in front of a painting. Either it makes an impact on him or it does not,” he says. “usually, the impact comes from something personal from the viewer, a forgotten memory, a subconscious tug of recognition. The viewer can sense if I am sincere but that is a different aspect of the word ‘art’ and it is not really my concern,” says orabi. “I think I need to paint because I would probably be a really annoying person if I didn’t! It is just my release.”

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Welcome to my World

The Freedom of Mohannad orabi

MohANNAD orABI

Born in Damascus, Syria, in 1977, Mohannad orabi’s fascination with colour and the human form started when he saw a row of babies in the incubators of a local hospital. Watching them squirm and cry, his imagination erupted and he began furiously sketching as he pursued this experimental line of enquiry further.

The graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus has participated in several collective exhibitions and workshops inside and outside Syria over the last eight years. In 2007, his work was exhibited at the inaugural artparis-AbuDhabi by Ayyam Gallery at Emirates Palace in the uAE capital. Also in the same year, orabi enjoyed a solo exhibition at Zara Gallery in Amman, Jordan.

orabi has already been commended for his artistic practice and has received several prizes; including first prize at the 2006 youth Art exhibition in Damascus. his pieces can be found in the permanent collections of private individuals in Syria, lebanon, Jordan, the uAE, Saudi Arabia, France, Canada and Switzerland.

Mohannad orabi. ‘Self Portrait’. 2008. Mixed media on canvas. 162 x 162 cm.

youssef Abdelké signing a copy of his monograph book.

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Ayyam lifeout and About with Syria’s leading Gallery of

Modern and Contemporary Art

Asaad Arabi signs his book for a fan at the opening of his latest exhibition at Ayyam Gallery.

lana Sarhan, Carla Masri and Jouhayna Samawi, some of the members of the Ayyam Gallery team.

Artist Safwan Dahoul with Carla Masri at the launch of his monograph at Ayyam Gallery.

Artist Khaled Takreti stands beside two of his works as he talks to art lovers in the Ayyam Gallery stand at Art Paris 2008.

Ayyam Gallery Founder Khaled Samawi meets the patron of artparis-AbuDhabi, his highness Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan,

Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the uAE Armed Forces.

Art lovers, young and old, enjoyed the Ayyam Gallery stand at the haughton Art and Antiques Fair Dubai.

Khaled Samawi gives the keynote speech at the 2007 Ayyam Prize for Emerging Syrian Artists.

Published on the occasion of Mouneer Al-Shaárani’s exhibition at Ayyam Gallery (Damascus) in January 2008, this 133-page hardback book features no less than 136 colour reproductions of selected works by the master calligrapher-artist dating from 1986 to 2007. youssef Abdelké, fellow Ayyam Gallery artist and celebrated art critic provides a clear and concise insight into the work of Al-Shaárani over the 21-year period and delves into his 35-year-long artistic practice. From Al-Shaárani’s humble beginnings as the apprentice of Badawi Al-Dirany to his exilic existence and finally, his triumphant return to Syria, with English and Arabic text, his first monograph should certainly help to establish his formidable reputation on an international scale.

In addition to an ever-growing portfolio of publications examining the careers of its artists, Ayyam Gallery produces a bumper catalogue each season that offers readers a taste of the latest works on offer. The impressive quarterly publication offers a perfect window into the careers of some of the leading players in the world of Contemporary Syrian art. Full and double-page colour reproductions of artworks - spanning everything from oil and ink on canvas to mixed media and sculpture - are previewed within the pages, providing a taste of Ayyam Gallery’s upcoming calendar of exhibitions. The images are accompanied, as always, by insightful articles written by some of Syria’s leading art critics, cultural journalists and artistic practitioners. Written in Arabic and English, this publication is certainly a cut above the normal art gallery catalogue and merits a longer shelf-life than just 12 weeks. Each issue is sure to sit on the coffee tables of art lovers for months on end, allowing collectors to amass a formidable body of knowledge as they accumulate each weighty issue.

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released on the same day that youssef Abdelke’s December 2007 exhibition opened at Ayyam Gallery (Damascus), this substantial hardback book explores the intricacy of the artist’s prolific body of work from 1995 to 2007 - a highly creative period spanning 12 years. With no less than 209 high quality reproductions of Abdelke’s charcoal works on paper, accompanied by text in both Arabic and English penned by Ayyam Gallery Founder Khaled Samawi as well as critic and long-time friend Emil Menhem, Abdelké’s inaugural monograph offers readers the opportunity to look back on each step of his fascinating career; from pieces dating from the mid-1990s tainted with a sense of naivety to more recently executed works that proclaim the mature mastery of his hand.

This monograph begins with a panoramic photograph of Abdullah Murad’s atelier in the heart of old Damascus, drawing the reader in with a powerful image that demonstrates the overwhelming wealth of his artistic expression in full abundance. In his foreword, Khaled Samawi pays homage to the “simple, honest and joyful approach to life [that] brings purity and honesty to his [Murad’s] paintings.” The 152 pages of artworks are interspersed by short texts by leading critics, Ghyiath Akhras, omran Al-Qaisi, Issam Darwish, Nicole Malhami harfoush and Bassam Jubeili as well as Abdullah Murad himself, who describes his practice as an invitation to celebrate the freedom and happiness in a world engulfed by anxiety and injustice.

one of Ayyam Gallery’s newest artist books, this is an exploration of the works of the formidable Palestinian artist Samia halaby. Texts by Khaled Samawi, Nathalie handal and halaby herself explore the different periods of her life, from her early student works of the 1960s to her ‘Geometric Abstractions’, ‘Kinetic Paintings’, ‘Earth Works’ and ‘hanging Sculptures’, among many others. over 100 beautifully illustrated pages showcase her striking works in all their glory, and handal has gone to great lengths to immerse herself in halaby’s world, producing an in-depth Question-Answer interview. From her influences, styles and inspirations, the book also provides personal explanations by halaby of the stories behind many of her artworks.

After spending 30 years as a professional photographer working for some of the world’s most prestigious magazines and news agencies, Nassouh Zaghlouleh expanded his horizons beyond journalistic and figurative subject matter to explore the light and space of his home city of Damascus. The warmth and intensity of his contemplative black and white portraits of the city capture its spirit magnificently. With accompanying texts in French, Arabic and English, including a moving tribute entitled ‘A Celebration of Silence’ by Zaghlouleh’s close friend and artist youssef Abdelké (who also lived in Paris for an extended period of time), this 96-page publication is an excellent insight into the more artistic approach of Zaghlouleh’s photographic practice.

Published on the occasion of Safwan Dahoul’s solo exhibition at Ayyam Gallery in Damascus, this hardback monograph records the Syrian artist’s famed ‘rêve’ series of works from 2006 until 2008. Beginning with a multilingual definition of the word, ‘rêve’ (dream) Khaled Samawi’s foreword goes on to thank Dahoul for being the [Ayyam] ‘dream’. A statement by Dahoul himself (in his own Arabic handwriting) expresses his dream of always wanting to be an artist and also includes his height and weight! The book documents Dahoul’s distinct female subjects, through their perfect symmetry in tones of mustard yellow, black and grey. Viewers will be delighted to find sketches of rêve’s figures in blue Biro pens too!

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Ayyam Books

Mouneer Al-Shaárani youssef Abdelké

Abdullah Murad Samia halabyNassouh Zaghlouleh

Safwan DahoulTo celebrate his April 2008 solo exhibition at Ayyam Gallery (Damascus), Al-Beik’s publication begins with photographs of the four people who have served as major sources of inspiration; his mother, father, film director robert Bresson and footballer Maradona. Images spanning his cinematic career precede a foreword by the Syrian art critic Bashar Ibrahim, who praises Al-Beik’s 10 films and 16 international awards. Another text by fellow Ayyam Gallery artist, youssef Abdelké, celebrates Al-Beik’s approach; likening him to a modern-day Don Quixote. The publication sections the works of the multi-disciplinary artist through stills of his movies and photography, in its myriad styles - from digitally altered images to semi-animated visuals.

Dubbed ‘The Mother of Modern Syrian Art’, leila Nseir’s book opens with a tribute by Khaled Samawi, and three hefty forewords by art critics yara Nseir, rashed Isa and renowned Syrian artist Asaad Arabi. Celebrating Nseir’s ability to combine past and present, this hard back book delves into Nseir’s experimentation with romanticism, realism, Abstractionism and Expressionism. Published on the occasion of her solo exhibition at Ayyam Gallery (Damascus) in February 2008, readers can ponder the multi-faceted artistry of Nseir, from the influences of political mayhem and love for ancient Egyptian motifs to the expression of her own infertility. Pick up this book and take a journey into the world of this complex yet candid artist.

Ammar Al-Beik

leila Nseir

This supplement has been created by Mixed Media Publishing,the publishers of Canvas magazine.

Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Ali Y Khadra

Finance & Administration Elie Barghout

Editor Lisa Ball-Lechgar

Assistant Editor Anna Wallace-Thompson

Art Director Nataly Abdelnour

Production Manager Parul Arya

Distribution & Marketing Manager Fiza Akram

Contributors Zena Takieddine

Myrna Ayad

Mixed Media Publishing FZ LLC PO Box 500487, Dubai, UAE

Tel: +971 43671693 - Fax: +971 43672645 [email protected]

www.mixed-media.com - wwww.canvasonline.com

Ayyam Gallery Catalogue

To purchase or receive further information on any Ayyam Gallery publications, please email [email protected]

This supplement has been printed on environmentally friendly paper, which has a natural grain in ivory shade. It is made with 100% Elementary Chlorine Free cellulose and is acid free with alkaline reserve that guarantees long life.

The International Art + Design Fair October 3-8, 2008 The Park Avenue Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street, New York, NY 10065

AYYAM GALLERYStand C3-C4





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