Syrian Artist Tammam Azzam decodes arts and humanity



Mariam Nihal

Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH - Syrian artist Tammam Azzam infuses war torn segments with art and various types of media. He told Saudi Gazette: “Art cannot save Syria. Nothing can save Syria except the revolution. All art can do is keep the hope of a future and of rebuilding Syria. So I hope my artwork will stay here.”



His creation is based around an artwork in a hybrid form. “I have many ideas on how to make huge installations against weapons and armies in an artistic way,” he said. Born in Damascus in 1980, Tammam Azzam is currently based in Dubai. After living in Damascus during the first seven months of the revolution, Azzam said he was forced to leave Syria with his family to escape military recruitment. He told Saudi Gazette: “These were the most complicated months in my life, for me nothing was important in the past, before the revolution. It was a proud feeling for Syrian people, they were and still are, as brave as nobody can imagine. The strongest memory was when I heard that one man from Daraa had been shot the first day. He was Mahmoud Aljawabra from Daraa.”



Tammam mentioned that the loss of his studio due to relocation, led him to focus on digital media. His recent works see a marriage between digital media and street art references to decipher the political and social unrest in Syria.



“I think there is nothing integral to the work of an artist. Every new artwork has a different direction, so each artwork is individual and a part of the overall project. But I still believe that an artist has to focus on the deep feeling of humanity.”



When asked about the role an artist plays in society, he said: “I am sorry to say that art does not make sense with what’s going on right now in the Middle East. Still, the artist has to do his best to express himself, with his own point of view. I want to make artwork not a political poster.”



He said the past few years have enabled him to use a new way of presenting art, as he spends his time using various graphic designing programs with scanned fragments of his paintings to achieve new results.



Discussing “Freedom Graffiti” (2012) and Gustav Klimt, he said: “The Syrian Museum is a series created for the Syria exhibition which incorporates iconic subjects from the greatest European masters such as da Vinci, Matisse, Goya and Picasso.” The series highlighted achievements of humanity with the destruction it is also capable of inflicting.



“Klimt’s ‘The Kiss’ 2013 shows the love and relationship between people and I have juxtaposed this with the capacity of hate the regime holds for its people.”



Azzam enjoys art that inspires, which is full of hope but said it is hard to earn at a time where massacres are a part of daily life. When it comes to themes he pursues, he said he looks for desolated and destroyed buildings all the time. “How it was a place full of life and stories and suddenly for nothing, a power could end that forever.”



“In the revolution” is a series of digital artworks that was showcased in his solo exhibition held in November 2012 in Ayyam Gallery Dubai. “Other examples took the form of fractured and wounded maps of my country, stop signs covered with bullet holes, bleeding apples, fallen chess pawns and puzzle pieces, and symbols of peace reconfigured into targets, all symbolizing the violence Syrians are facing.”



His solo and group exhibitions include the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts, Slovenia (2013); Ayyam Gallery Beirut (2013); Ayyam Gallery London (2013); Ayyam Gallery Al Quoz, Dubai (2012, 2009); Ayyam Gallery DIFC, Dubai (2011); Ayyam Gallery Beirut (2010); Ayyam Gallery Damascus (2010).



In 2014, Azzam will participate in the Fotofest Biennial Contemporary Arab Photography, Video and Mixed Media Art in Houston, Texas. His first UK solo exhibition this December at Ayyam Gallery London, coincides with a show at Ayyam Gallery Beirut from Dec. 5 2013 to January 2014.