Fateh Moudarres reveals his quest for balance which stemmed out of his many life tragedies through his works in the private collection of Mr. Munzer Khair which was accompanied by a rich Documentary Portrait of the artist and a book about the collection presented at Ayyam Gallery.
Undeniably one of the most recognised artists from Syria, Fateh Moudarres has created a universal visual language that celebrates the spirit of Syrian modern painting. The Khair family unveiled their private art collection of stunning works by Fateh Moudarres for the first time while also launching the family’s art collection book edited by Hala Khayat in collaboration with Christie’s at Ayyam Gallery. The exhibition shed intimate light on Moudarres and on Mr. Munzer Khair’s accomplished collection, which is the largest private collection of works by Moudarres and accrued over the past 30 years by Khair and his family.
Accompanying the exhibition, a Documentary Portrait of Moudarres, produced by Khair under Al Sayyar Art Productions and directed by the late Omar Amiralay, Muhammad Malas and Ussama Muhammad, gave a very personal and extraordinary insight into the intimate thoughts behind the artist.
The Khair Art Collection
Whilst viewing Moudarres’ work and listening to him in conversation, one gets a clear sense that he, much like the figures in his paintings, is seemingly lost and ever searching for balance, for equilibrium, and a sense of belonging. His main motifs were comprised of his life tragedies which tremendously affected the soul of his art works. When he lost his father at an early age, he was deprived of his mother until the age of ten. Perhaps this is the reason we see the mother as a central figure in his works. Recurring references to his two children, both of whom he lost at an early age are also profoundly present in his body of work.
Every colour speaks to the artist in a different way. “There are colours that frighten me”, he said when he spoke about colour in the film, and continued with his thoughts on Verona Green, “It is a whorish colour that one, a colour that screams like an eggplant vendor on the streets!”. For Moudaress, red is the colour of battle and is cautiously used it in his political paintings. “Despite its power, I use red with kindness and I often soften it with strokes of black or gold to overpower its strength”, he explains about taming the colour red.
Fateh Moudarres intermingles beautifully tradition and modernity, and the past and the present to create a very unique experience that is very much his own. He weaves the peasant spirit of his beloved Syrian land into his works by creating his own figures inspired by ancient Levant and Assyrian legends but that mirror his own emotions and experiences.