Syrian artist Safwan Dahoul is one of the leading contemporary artists of the Arab world, and has been a mentor and a huge influence on the next generation of artists. Over the last three decades he has been mapping the changes taking place within him and in the region through his ‘Dream’ series. The central figure in these haunting, monochromatic paintings, all titled Dream, is a pensive, solitary woman, who is the observer and the narrator of everything that is happening in the artist’s life and around him. Through her, he has explored the physical and psychological effects of the alienation, loneliness, loss and longing that are part of the human experience.
In his early works this figure had hollow or closed eyes and seemed to dwell in an inner universe far away from the real world. But in later series she emerged from her cocoon and opened her eyes to observe the reality around her and reacted to it emotionally. Dahoul sometimes depicted her as a winged angel watching over the world. The changes in this character reflect the changing situation in Syria, and the changes in Dahouls’s own life, from the loss of his wife to his move from Damascus to Dubai after the escalation of the conflict in his country.
