The artist went viral for his digital artworks in 2013 depicting European masterworks juxtaposed against the ruins of Syria.
Syrian artist Tammam Azzam’s latest solo exhibition at Ayyam Gallery captures the stillness, the emptiness that’s left behind after mass destruction. Titled Diary, the exhibition features paintings and works on paper, combining techniques of collage and oil paints. They depict eerily beautiful scenes of demolished ruins of abstracted cities that are framed and balanced within strong horizons.
“What interests me is the emptiness when a place is destroyed, erased or has been attacked,” Azzam tells The National.
“It’s a display of what humanity does to itself and to others.”
It’s a macabre theme to grapple with and one that Azzam understands first hand.
Azzam fled Syria in 2011 at the beginning of the uprising in his homeland and settled in Dubai until he moved to Germany where he now lives. Far removed, Azzam saw devastation on a mass scale change the face of his country and felt hopeless. A painter by training, Azzam had no studio when he first arrived to Dubai, so he turned to his laptop and created his works there instead. Through digital art, Azzam created a series of works titled The Syrian Museum. One work, named Freedom Graffiti, superimposed the famed artwork The Kiss by Austrian painter Gustav Klimt over a bullet ridden and bombed out building in Syria.
