Future Heroes (2023)
Future Heroes" is an exhibition born out of a profound love for language, an unwavering connection to one's homeland, and a deep longing for the faces and voices left behind.
As a Syrian painter, I am acutely aware of the contradictions that permeate the reality of my region, and it is through my practice that I strive to navigate this complex tapestry.
In my youth, newspapers held a peculiar significance in my life. My grandmother would always bring a couple after work and I would watch her solve the cross words. she’d finish reading them. We would use them as tablecloths to eat food on, their contents ,amidst the chaos of our nation's political landscape,rendered irrelevant. Controlled by various political parties, the news became a distorted reflection of our fragmented reality. Yet, I was fascinated by the delicate grey-coloured papers, the images of celebrities, the calligraphy and the myriad typefaces that adorned their pages.
Drawing from my fascination with newspapers and other visual resources like images fro m search engines, or social media platforms, I meticulously construct collages that serve as an archive of memory. I gather newspapers from different regions of the middle east, seeking to capture the diverse faces of my people. Through the interplay of imagery and text, I attempt to preserve the stories and emotions that permeate the landscape of my homeland.
As a Syrian painter, I am acutely aware of the contradictions that permeate the reality of my region, and it is through my practice that I strive to navigate this complex tapestry.
In my youth, newspapers held a peculiar significance in my life. My grandmother would always bring a couple after work and I would watch her solve the cross words. she’d finish reading them. We would use them as tablecloths to eat food on, their contents ,amidst the chaos of our nation's political landscape,rendered irrelevant. Controlled by various political parties, the news became a distorted reflection of our fragmented reality. Yet, I was fascinated by the delicate grey-coloured papers, the images of celebrities, the calligraphy and the myriad typefaces that adorned their pages.
Drawing from my fascination with newspapers and other visual resources like images fro m search engines, or social media platforms, I meticulously construct collages that serve as an archive of memory. I gather newspapers from different regions of the middle east, seeking to capture the diverse faces of my people. Through the interplay of imagery and text, I attempt to preserve the stories and emotions that permeate the landscape of my homeland.
In this latest series, a compelling presence of men: athletes, politicians, soldiers, and innocent children emerges. At first glance, their arrangement may seem random, but behind the compositions lies an investigation into the precarious role of men within a patriarchal society, love and empathy. Influenced by the transformative power of love, I contemplate the state of masculinity and the vulnerability it harbours.
Scared for our men, scared of the patriarchal forces that confine and control them, my artworks become a conduit for expressing the depths of my emotions. Through these visual narratives, I shed light on the pain and struggles experienced by our society, and unveil the unspoken stories of our people.
As you engage with these artworks, may you find within them the fragments of a poem by Mahmoud Darwish(roughly translated to Surround your siege) entwined with my own poetic expressions, "Future Heroes" is a homage to the resilience of the human spirit, the untapped potential within each of us, and the possibility of a future that transcends our present reality.
Scared for our men, scared of the patriarchal forces that confine and control them, my artworks become a conduit for expressing the depths of my emotions. Through these visual narratives, I shed light on the pain and struggles experienced by our society, and unveil the unspoken stories of our people.
As you engage with these artworks, may you find within them the fragments of a poem by Mahmoud Darwish(roughly translated to Surround your siege) entwined with my own poetic expressions, "Future Heroes" is a homage to the resilience of the human spirit, the untapped potential within each of us, and the possibility of a future that transcends our present reality.
