Youth Creativity Forum for woodcarving and oil painting in Damascus Citadel

The Youth Creativity Forum for Woodcarving and Oil Painting provided a  valuable opportunity for students of the Technical Institute of Applied Arts and a number of its graduates to display their works that they had worked on in the Damascus Citadel following ten days of continuous but enjoyable work.

The forum included 10 wood-based sculptural works in large sizes with a variety of styles and topics that reflected the varying experiences and visions of participating young sculptors from the institute’s graduates over the past ten years, in addition to 12 oil paintings executed by a number of students of the four departments in the institute with topics that varied to include nature, portraiture, and various human cases in different styles.

Regarding the main goal of holding the forum, sculptor Waddah Salameh, director of the institute said in a statement to SANA: “The aim of the event is to revitalize the role of the Damascus Citadel in hosting artistic activities and to restore the institute’s role in spreading beauty and culture, as well as supporting the Syrian plastic art movement through displaying the work of the creative young generation who are capable of presenting important artistic works, indicating that the forum will be followed by other activities that the institute will hold.

During her second participation in the forum, sculptor Simaf Hussien, exhibited a sculpture representing a pregnant woman in a simplistic expressive style, as this state of tenderness can only be  symbolized by women, considering that the forum provided an opportunity for new young talents to meet and to know more about each other’s visions and experiences.

The sculptor Radwan Basset, displayed a pine wood sculpture representing a dervish who performs the “Sky Dance” in an expressive style that relies on modification to highlight the softness of the mass and the spirit of work, stressing that this experience was beneficial to him as it is the first of its kind.

In his sculpture,  Cesar Mazoukh embodied the idea of shackling the human being to the internal conflict in an expressive style by connecting the wooden block with metal wires and burning wood to give a special spirit to the work.  He believed that the forum is important for all participants, with all its competition and exchange of views and ideas.

A sculpture by Lojane Ghoneim, represents a duality that embodies the strong relationship between man and woman in an expressive style. She stressed that the forum constitutes a useful case of cooperation between the participants as it provided them with a beautiful spirit to work.

The sculptor Louay Masri Zada, chose the surrealist method for his sculptural work, which represents a struggle between good and evil, asserting the importance of the forum for him as he is participating for the first time in such an event.

Sculptor Hana Al’abbar, addressed the topic of women’s pride in an abstract manner that expresses her own atmosphere without going into details. As for the sculptor, Joanna Izoly, she displayed a sculpture that represents women in an expressive style, praising the institute’s initiative and the Ministry of Culture’s support for holding the forum in order to provide young people with the necessary technical expertise.

Sculptor Hanan El Hajj, presented a sculpture symbolizing the body of a pregnant woman with the head of a bird while giving it the red color, to break the stereotypes of the color of wood.

Ayman Marwan presented a painting on nature, indicating that the oil painting workshop that was held during the forum had gave him experience in drawing and dealing with oil colors. While student Lynn Abu Samra embodied in her painting a feminine situation in a realistic and expressive style, noting the workshop that gave students the necessary information to deal with painting from its beginning to the end.

Amal Farhat