Ayyam Gallery Dubai (DIFC) is pleased to announce A Heart on a Wall, the solo show of Beirut-based Syrian artist Abdul Karim Majdal Al-Beik. Featuring a selection of recent works, the exhibition will spotlight a new direction in the artist’s painting style. Following a widely successful 2014 multimedia solo exhibition at Ayyam Projects, Majdal Al-Beik revisits a body of work that he began in Damascus in an effort to document the time that has passed since the start of the Syrian conflict.
Viewing city walls as records of daily occurrences where memories are preserved, Majdal Al-Beik explores the many lives that are now on hold, particularly of Syrians residing in Beirut. Using a brighter palette and additional materials that create dense, layered surfaces, the artist describes the volatile nature of this in between space and the horrors of war that manifest in pain, love, and hope. Warm colours and new symbols have replaced the greyness of Damascus walls that represents ‘silent wounds’ in his previous paintings. Arabic script and graffiti, remnants of advertisements, and childlike scratches adorn his walls, as he includes the textures and overlaid paint that are found on the exteriors of weathered buildings.
