Everything is connected. Molecules and micro-life, stars and planets, all of them exist separately but together, simultaneously and at random.
In a body of work by Syrian artist Khaled Akil, this idea, both simple and complex, hums through blazing gradients of colour and layers upon layers of paint.
“When you look at where you are in the universe, it's always within the boundaries of your thoughts and consciousness, we can't get beyond that,” Akil tells The National.
“You can get to the universe itself but then you still ask what's outside? What's outside and inside is borders. We're bounded by that. You can't really comprehend that the concept of no boundaries is infinite.”
For his first solo exhibition in the UAE, Akil presents 20 paintings of various sizes at Ayyam Gallery in Alserkal Avenue in Dubai. He spent almost two years creating this body of work, his first foray into painting.
A multimedia artist who is primarily known as a photographer, Akil is the son of the prominent Syrian painter Youssef Akil. In part, Akil says, he was reluctant to try his hand at painting because of his father.
“To me, my father is a master,” he says. “When I was a kid, I thought I'm not going to paint because no matter what I do, people will say your dad is doing better and if I do well they will say like you're influenced by your dad.”
Akil found his initial voice through photography. In 2016, his series Pokemon Go in Syria went viral. Using poignant images of children in the demolished streets of Syria, captured by AFP photographers, Akil digitally inserted Pokémon figures from the popular game Pokémon Go. The effect is powerful – a sad reminder of lost childhood and joy for many children of war.
Akil’s decision to start painting was an accumulation of life experiences. From war, leaving Syria, to the changing nature of personal relationships, he felt that photography was not helping him understand or express those experiences in a satisfying fashion.
“The medium, my ego, my identity, what I knew about myself was not serving me well,” he says. “There was so much data in me, about who I am, what I want to be in life and what I wish, that it was getting so noisy.”
