Ayyam Gallery is pleased to present works by Tammam Azzam, Oussama Diab, Khaled Jarrar, Nadim Karam, Mouteea Murad and Mehdi Nabavi on display at Art Dubai 2013. The carefully selected sculptures and paintings comment on prevalent themes central to cultural discourse within the Middle East. Representing a wide range of countries in the region, the works of art that will feature at Art Dubai 2013 will provide visitors with a comprehensive overview of the issues at the heart of debate in the Middle Eastern art world and beyond.

Syrian artist Tammam Azzam will show a large canvas based on his photographic work Freedom Graffiti (2012) which recently went viral across social media platforms. For this, the artist superimposed Gustav Klimt’s iconic work, The Kiss (1907 - 1908), over the walls of a war-torn building in his native country in a powerful juxtaposition of beauty and devastation. In the new canvas work, Azzam will work back into the image with mixed media, eradicating the bullet-ridden walls to place the focus on Klimt’s image of a couple kissing.

Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar lives and works in Ramallah, Palestine, and centres his work on the socio-political issues that affect his native country. His cement soccer balls, appearing at Art Dubai 2013, are made from material cut from the Israeli-built barrier separating the West Bank from Israel. Through these sculptures, Jarrar protests against what he considers to be an Israeli act of oppression, producing passive and playful objects from a material whose source provokes passionate and violent debates.

Meanwhile, Oussama Diab, also from Palestine, employs pop art and childlike imagery as a means of exploring global political concerns. Featured in Art Dubai 2013, will be Diab’s New Guernica which references Picasso’s iconic imagery and applies it to underline the terror of a modern day civil war. With this image, the artist invites the viewer to consider the distress and turmoil felt by the Syrian people.

Also on show will be Elephant by Lebanese artist and architect Nadim Karam, who combines painting, drawing, sculpture and writing, while fusing various cultural influences to produce work that transcends borders and socio-political constraints. Alongside this, five new smaller-scale sculptures by Karam will be shown for the first time, exploring a range of whimsical subjects.

Image: © Khaled Jarrar, Ayyam Gallery