Composition 5-23 Painting

I am a Contemporary Painter and Printmaker based in London. Holding an MA in International Contemporary Art and a BFA in Printmaking. Growing up in Damascus, Syria, before moving to Southeast Asia for eight years, where I explored art and culture, added to years living in the UK, gave me a cultural mixture and experience from the Middle East, Asia and the West, which is reflected in my artworks by symbols, textures, feelings and shapes that I carried from every stage in my life. My artworks are largely based on self-expression and reflections of my feelings and thoughts, not only as an individual but as a human living in a rapidly evolving time, technology, wars, crises and hope with every sunrise. I strive to achieve a sense of visual simplicity and sophistication that reflects these emotions through abstract forms. The visual vocabulary of my abstract shapes is a mixture of elements I have picked up and developed in life, for instance, the urban buildings of cities like Damascus. Influenced by the structures and relations between the buildings, rooftops, sky and the messy, narrow alleys. Arabic and Asian ink calligraphy art, the sand on an abandoned beach, the landscapes in the UK, the quiet gloomy winter, the massive giant buildings and many more. Exploring and mixing different media is integral to my work. I use materials such as; marble dust, sand, cement, charcoal, pastel, gesso, varnish, shellac, inks, and acrylic paint, to create a rough surface and to reintroduce those materials in a different way to see them. Overall, my artistic practice aims to create a visual language that is both playful and sophisticated, evoking a sense of curiosity and wonder in the viewer related to feelings and subjects like anger, hope, identity, loneliness, clarity, simplicity, love and more.