On November 12, 2009, Ayyam Gallery, Dubai is proud to present Walid El Masri in his first solo show in the United Arab Emirates.
In renowned Syrian painter Walid El Masri’s paintings the chair is cardinal. Yet, even though this shape remains constant throughout his work it is not the chair in itself that is important.
“I don’t paint chairs in an attempt of realistic depiction or to imply countless interpretations, I only paint them for their endless visual possibilities”
The artist did not reach this logic immediately; he spent years experimenting with portraits and nudes, until he finally chose to fully devote himself to the chair purely because of its simplicity.
A circle can be linked to a truism of interpretations; the sun, a ball, an angelic hallo, but a chair at first glance is simply and superficially just a chair. This is what attracts El Masri.
Repetition is by no means banal to the painter. The greater reality will always be too complex for any individual to fully comprehend. Life remains full of unanswered questions; in that context El Masri’s continual Chair becomes a comforting image, but his works by no means elementary or facile.
Walid El Masri was born in 1979 and has been gaining prominence internationally and in the Middle East, taking part in several collective exhibitions in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Rome, Barcelona, Teheran, Istanbul, the USA and China. He is recently coming off a tour in Asia where we did solo shows in Hong Kong and Beijing.
Diverse in his talents, El Masri won the 2nd prize for photography in the “Colors of Damascus” workshop in 2006. In 2007, Ayyam Gallery organized a competition for young emerging Syrian artists, where one of El Masri’s paintings illustrating a chair was awarded 3rd place. He spent his university years at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus, also accumulating prizes as a student.
