New artwork by Syrian artist Safwan Dahoul was revealed yesterday with a new, deeper and meaningful twist in the series.

The artwork shows two figures, appears to be a woman and a man, eyes closed but one of them is in a messy paper that seems to be pealing out of the scene, or dispatching itself from reality, preparing to be “no longer there” and all is happening while the other person is asleep, unaware of what is going on. This “unconcious” seperation can happen between our past, present & future; or an inner conflict that results a seperation of the old and new person, or a seperation between two people. I say “conflict” because it’s reflected in the messy cluttered paper, it is a forced seperation, one part doesn’t want it to happen and it is hard to let go.

The new artwork by Safwan Dahoul will be exhibited later this year.

About Safwan Dahoul

Born in Hama, Syria in 1961, Safwan Dahoul is among the highest grossing Middle Eastern artists to date with record-breaking auction sales and blockbuster shows that have made his paintings popular with regional and international collectors alike.

After graduating from the Faculty of Fines Arts in Damascus at the top of his class in 1983, Dahoul went on to receive a scholarship to study abroad from the Ministry of Higher Education in 1987. Choosing to travel to Belgium due to its rich artistic heritage, particularly its 16th century Flemish school of painting, he obtained a doctorate from the Higher Institute of Plastic Arts in Mons in 1997.  Since then he has participated in international art fairs and individual and collective exhibitions throughout the Middle East, Europe and the US.

As Dahoul’s art is undeterred by national borders, his painting-style is inspired by a vast range of art history including ancient Assyrian and Pharaonic art, and European masters, such as Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegal the Elder. Elements of international Modernism and Post-war painting such as the Cubist inspired monumentality of Picasso and the sociopolitical foreboding of Francis Bacon can also be detected. Yet the Syrian artist’s canvases demonstrate a profound originality, namely with the formation of his aesthetic through the detailed exploration of a reoccurring female subject in his widely-recognized “Dream” series, a continuous body of work that has evolved since 1982.

Cheers