Collective exhibition for a group of prominent plastic artists at the Blue House in Damascus

After several years of hiatus, the exhibition of the professors in the Painting Department at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Damascus reopened recently at the Blue House Gallery in Damascus.

The exhibition presented the most remarkable and latest artistic production of these veteran artists who enriched the art scene with their creative works and provided the artistic life in Syria with generations of young artists who studied in the fine art faculty and came to see the works of their teachers in a new space outside the halls of the university.

The exhibition included 28 paintings from various art schools for the prominent artists: Abdullah Salouma, Ali Suleiman, Saed Salloum, Sam Yousef, Ahed Al-Nasser Rajoub, Etab Naem, Fouad Dahdouh, Muhammad Al-Olabi, Yousef Al-Boushi and Muhammad Saleh Badawi.

The artist Saed Salloum, Head of the Painting Department at the Faculty of Fine Arts, told “Syria Times” “we tried this year to bring this beautiful and diverse event back to life”.

He pointed out that ten professors are participating in the exhibition to display their various distinguished works which were painted in different techniques, including acrylic, oil and other materials.

 “I participated with several paintings depicting gardens in Damascus, which have become different nowadays,” he said.

“Now, I no longer see the gardens as they were in the past, because they were beautiful with wonderful colors, but now the plants have lost their natural color, and the seats and swings are not as they were in the past. Everything is in a strange state, either destroyed or devoid of people because of the current conditions in the country. Also, I referred in my paintings to the theme of immigration,” he added.

“We, as artists, express through our paintings with the brush and colors what we feel and see. My paintings in this exhibition also depict the four seasons, which also are not as they were, as the seasons became different and strange because of the social reality in which we live. Everything have changed in nature in a different way,” the artist clarified.

One of the paintings depicted Spring, but its was painted with dark colors as the topic is associated with the so-called Arab Spring which brought destruction to the region.

“Nature is changing and shifting. There is something strange and sad in it. The four seasons appear in my paintings in a different way” the artist Saed Salloum said.

Dr. Muhammad Saleh Badawi, a professor in the Department of Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts at Damascus University, also participated in the exhibition.

He displayed one painting in which he expressed reality. His painting depicted Ishtar, the goddess of love and war and that symbolizes ancient mythical culture.

“Ishtar has two faces: the face of fertility, growth and prosperity and the black face that reflects the state of painful reality, as she is the goddess of war, destruction and killing which I focused on in my painting.

 Through my painting, I also tried to draw mythical creatures that represent the life of youth and elderly people,” he said.

“In my painting I reflect the local heritage. I draw space, so that anyone who sees the painting feels that it belongs to his environment” he added.

“The collective exhibition showed that the professors continue to produce artistic works and paint continuously and that they will present various topics of different artistic schools including symbolism and expressionism”, Dr. Muhammad Saleh Badawi said.

In his turn, Dr. Yousef al-Boushi, said that he participated with two paintings in this exhibition.

“I randomly inserted materials onto the surface of the painting, and then determined its shape,” he clarified.

 “There is abstraction and expressionism in the same painting. I used acrylic and earth colors, and I also used oil and glue. My paintings express the reality of the contemporary human being.

The exhibition of the professors of the painting department is a good opportunity to display their paintings and experiences to the public and to the students” Dr. Yousef al-Boushi stressed.