From April 30 until June 16, Ayyam Gallery DIFC will present It’s No Longer About Me, a solo show of Syrian artist, Mohannad Orabi. Featuring a new body of work by the rising painter, the forthcoming exhibition will present a shift in the artist’s subject matter and display an evident progression in stylistic rendering and a maturing of technique.
Diverging from his trademark playful, infantile subjects with deeply cavernous almond-shaped eyes that seem to float within the confines of the canvas, his new works are less gestural and less sharply delineated by shape. Where once empty ocular cavities stared hauntingly, glimmering irises now pierce the viewer. The heavy emphasis of his previous series on movement created by a multitude of scratched lines and the emphasis on boldly dripping color, though not lost in his new works, is now secondary. What is primarily relevant in his new body of work is the awareness of the individual. When questioned as to why he had not produced works in response to the Arab Spring, Orabi replied that his series does in fact reference the present situation in Syria. His characters are now forced to open their eyes to the events unfolding around them. They are no longer able to shut themselves away from this reality.