“Details… Allepian Tale” paper quilling Exhibition Depicts Heritage in Aleppo

The Arab Cultural Center in Abo Rummana in Damascus recently hosted an artistic paper exhibition entitled “Details.. Aleppian Tale” for artists Abdel Rahman Ashour and Ghinwa Houri.

The exhibition displayed  a collection of paintings and other artworks made of paper, which depicted the old city of Aleppo and its heritage, in addition to paper sculptures and handicrafts.

The two talented artists took the papers and transform them into unique and beautiful shapes. They possess a unique talent in the world of paper shaping, with which they merge reality with their fertile imagination. This art is called the art of “quilling”.

About the exhibition, Engineer Ghenwa Houri told Syria Times that “my husband, the artist Abdul Rahman Ashour, and I, worked on a project of paper quilling in Aleppo, which is a new artistic style in Syria. The project is called “Details” and  we came to Damascus to introduce our project through the exhibition “Details A Tale of Aleppo”, which is called the art of paper quilling to highlight our rich heritage in Aleppo city”.

The exhibition includes three sections. The first showcases paper paintings depicting heritage, Aleppo Citadel, inscriptions, decorations and Arabic calligraphy.

“We inspired our ideas for our products from the old Aleppo neighborhoods. For example, Al- Rababa (The oriental instrument), is one of the panels inspired by art life in old Aleppo neighborhoods.

“We also made bags from paper and decorated them with traditional engravings, soap boxes and notebooks from old paper bags, and accessories made of papers in which we used natural stones and threads” she added.

“In the third section, we display paper sculptures. We made three-dimensional sculptures of professions such as the profession of photographer, cook, doctor And the engineer. We also made cartoon characters for children such as Mickey Mouse, dolls for children, and cake molds from paper” Ghinwa said.

She said that the paper quilling project started eight years ago and we have held exhibitions in several governorates such as Homs, but this is the first exhibition in Damascus and we were surprised by the admiration of visitors, so, we aspire to hold international exhibitions”.

“As for the type of paper we use, it is graphite paper, which is natural paper from tree bark. At first, we used normal paper and watercolors, according to the work we are making, we draw and then we make the models” she concluded.

Interviewed and photos: Nada Haj Khidr