Ayyam Gallery Dubai (DIFC) is pleased to announce Connected, the solo exhibition of artist Elias Izoli. Featuring a new body of work, the exhibition highlights a recent conceptual departure for the Damascus-based painter. As a response to current events, Izoli has sought to address the suspension of ordinary life in the face of large-scale conflict through the imagery of Syria’s most celebrated figurative painter, Louay Kayyali (1934-1978). In doing so, Izoli comments on the relevance and urgency of Kayyali’s work in the political context of today.
Kayyali’s portraits of everyday subjects established a benchmark in modern Syrian art, and were shown throughout the country during his career. His widely recognised painting style, through which the poor and downtrodden were rendered with the elegant forms of Early Renaissance icons, spoke to the diverse spectrum of twentieth-century Syrian society while drawing attention to socioeconomic disparities. Izoli summons Kayyali’s figures, depicting them with painstaking detail in order to communicate how the melancholy that is displayed in the late artist’s compositions continues to appear, most vividly at a time when Syria is no longer recognisable. For the artist, these new works are connected to the conscience of Syria that Kayyali depicted ‘with the hope of finding a scene that would be less harsh, perhaps at a later stage.’
