Artist George Shweit : Caricature is the pulse of the street

The artist George Shweit ’s  artworks are characterized by expressing the people’s concerns and dreams through caricature in a manner that combines creativity and high technique , in addition to twinning some of his paintings with a very short story.

Shweit describes the art of caricature as the art of surprising and revealing, which crosses borders and cultures. 

The caricature, according to the artist Shweit, differs from other arts, where the artist contemplates reality with irony and goes beyond abstraction and comes with simplicity and uniqueness, stressing that  caricature is the pulse of the street that reflects the people’s suffering , especially the conditions of the simple and the toiling.

 Shweit confirmed to SANA that the first flashes of caricature  began with the oldest civilizations, where we see paintings on the walls of Pharaonic temples in Egypt and other regions of the world.

He asserted that the publication of caricature does not stop on the pages of newspapers and magazines, indicating that  there are artists throughout the world who excelled in addressing their paintings through elegant books that included hundreds of works and even television programs are keen on displaying local, Arab and international caricatures.

However, the artist Shweit , who won an international award in caricature from the United Nations, admitted that the position of this art is no longer what it was in the past, indicating to the decline of the role of the paper press and the tyranny of the digital language, as any event that takes place in the East and West of the earth is reached with a press button for all readers and without trouble.

As for his writing of the story in addition to the drawing, Shawit showed the similarities between the caricature drawing and the satirical short story in terms of   distinct characteristics, including condensation, shortness, irony, criticism and providing pleasure and benefit to the recipient.

It is noteworthy that the artist George Shweit published his works in many local and Arab newspapers and magazines. He has many solo exhibitions, most of them at Tishreen University in Lattakia and in a number of governorates, Lebanon and Arab countries.

He worked as a journalist for more than 40 years, locally and in the Arab world, and received local and international awards in the field of caricature and writing story.

He also worked in the theater and has contributions in the field of short films.

The artist Shweit is the president of the Youth Film Club and a member of the jury committees in literary competitions for the Youth Union of Young Writers.

Rawaa Ghanam