How to Host a Dinner Party

How to Host a Dinner Party

Omar Najjar is known for his style that he describes as “structured chaos.” His paintings come across as a modern take on impressionism, their quotidian subject matter is elevated to the sublime, providing a profound, if understated, view of the human experience. Expertly manipulating oil, pastels and charcoal, Najjar’s instantly recognisable work is characterised by broad brush strokes that give a suggestion to the story without giving the details fully.

Omar Najjar, Scream, 2018. Oil on canvas, 75 x 90 cm. Courtesy of the Fann A Porter Gallery and the artist

How to Host a Dinner Party

Hany Rashed, The Wait, 2007. Mixed media and collage, 45 x 45 cm. Courtesy of Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art

How to Host a Dinner Party

Hany Rashed, Untitled, 2007. Mixed media and collage, 45 x 45 cm. Courtesy of Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art

How to Host a Dinner Party

Ahmed Askalany, Sitting Man, 2015. Bronze, 40 x 30 x 25 cm. Courtesy of Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art

How to Host a Dinner Party

My practice explores the notions of spatiotemporal identity and the semiotics of relations with other beings, focusing on a dialogue between dissimilar forms, and how they may consolidate or interrupt each other. Contextually, I am keen on raising the question of dynamism, or failed dynamism, that two exclusive beings, or societies, could have with one another. Twelve Desperate Egg-Plants explores the barriers of discontinuity between the organic and inorganic, where real eggs are made to coexist with nonliving, plaster cast eggplants. This pairing questions the extent to which continuity can be achieved between two singular individual forms. The artwork also considers the placement of oneself within a foreign space

Nour Mala, Twelve Desperate Egg-Plants. Plaster, real eggs, 15 cm each

How to Host a Dinner Party

Hani Alqam, Amman Coffee Shop, 2018. Acrylic on canvas, 75 x 50 cm. Courtesy of The Artinerary

How to Host a Dinner Party

Hani Alqam, Auberge Coffee Shop, 2018. Acrylic on wood, 90 x 65 cm. Courtesy of The Artinerary

How to Host a Dinner Party

Katya A. Traboulsi, Untitled, 2005. Mixed media on canvas, 132 x 120 cm. Courtesy of Saleh Barakat Gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

In Othman Moussa’s latest works, something as simple as food is now transformed into a weapon, reflecting the presence of violence in the most minor details of life. Other paintings of the series utilise satire as a biting form of social commentary as the thrones of absent monarchs are portrayed in an absurd manner and symbols of power are stripped of their aura.

Othman Moussa, Five Quinces, Terrorism Series, 2017. Oil on canvas, 120 x 100 cm. Courtesy The artist and Fann A Porter gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

Hany Rashed, In the Garden, 2007. Mixed media and collage, 45 x 45 cm. Courtesy of Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art

How to Host a Dinner Party

In this work, Haydeh Ayazi as always creates a bizarre and strange scene depicting humans and birds running and pushing for an event that is going to be held soon as they escape through the crowd. The main idea of the work ironically refers to the "Egg inflation " in Iran and Ayazi uses a Dark humor language to depict this issue. There are lots of symbols, mystery and enigma in the painting that artist herself pushes the viewer to decode. There is a leader (symbol of the power) who is standing at the left corner to direct and order the crowd. Also a freaky creatures at the right corner of the image who is witnessing the scene. The hand at the top right corner is repeated in all the paintings of artist's recent series. Ayazi's paintings are just part of a long episode and story that is becoming, and Ayazi, like a journalist photographer, records a single frame of the whole event, and even this single frame is not the most significant moment of that day and that incident. Haydeh Ayazi accurately comprehends this planet’s amalgamation that is going on and her anecdote is not as intricate as it seems. The eccentricity of the images are because we always get there in the middle of the story. We miss the emergence and we will not get through to the epilogue.

Haydeh Ayazi, Untitled, 2020. Coloured pen & marker on paper, 50 x 70 cm. Courtesy of Delgosha Gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

Fereydoun Ave, Rostam in Dense Pollution, 2018. Collage, mixed media on paper, 70 x 105 cm. Courtesy of Dastan Gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

Fereydoun Ave, Rostam in Dense Pollution, 2018. Collage, Mixed Media on Paper, 75 x 110 cm. Courtesy of Dastan Gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

Khaled Takreti, La Pouke aux oeufs d'or. Acrylic on canvas, 100 x 80 cm. Courtesy of the artist

How to Host a Dinner Party

A child who lost a limb in the war wakes every morning feeling the pain and this repeats. However harrowing, perhaps more than most, Child’s Play is a testament to the creativity and ingenuity of children in how they deal with factors beyond their control. It is also a tragedy than many children who experience such conflict will have their lives curtailed as their early childhood experiences have already been compromised.

Rana Samara, Prosthetics, 2019. Acrylic on canvas, 207 × 530 cm. Courtesy of Zawyeh Gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

How to Host a Dinner Party

Adel El Siwi, Alter ego 1, 2020. Mixed media on paper, 50 x 70 cm. Courtesy of Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art

How to Host a Dinner Party

Adel El Siwi, Alter ego 2, 2020. Mixed media on paper, 50 x 70 cm. Courtesy of Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art

How to Host a Dinner Party

How to Host a Dinner Party

Kais Salman’s work has been described as monochromatic, abstract expressionism. The artist uses satire to subvert the normalisation of greed, narcissism and ideological extremism that is rapidly defining our era. As one of Syria’s foremost expressionist painters, Salman has contributed to a decades-long artistic tradition that continues to serve as a powerful outlet for social commentary. A consummate formalist, he is recognised as one of the Arab world’s most accomplished painters.

Kais Salman, Untitled, 2015. Acrylic on canvas, 122 x 207 cm. Courtesy of Ayyam Gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

United by my interest in materiality and rich surface textures, I use my work to explore topical urban issues, documenting everyday city people who are often neglected and displaced in the drive toward excessive urbanisation, rapid modern development and the growing global economy. The focus of this exhibition is the global issues of migration [paintings] and free speech [sculptures]. I have employed materials such as Dhurrie Rugs, dyed and stitched heavy cotton in the paintings, bronze and stone in the sculptures. The sculptures in this exhibition highlight the issues of free speech. These anonymous almost faceless sculptures in bronze and stone are created to start a discourse around freedom of speech, which is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community.

Alimi Adewale, Evolution Series, 2019. Stone, 16 x 21 x 32 cm. Courtesy of Anima Gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

Alimi Adewale , Anonymous series 1, Acrylic on wood, 30 x 46 x 108 cm. Courtesy of Anima Gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

Alimi Adewale , Anonymous series 2, Acrylic on wood, 30 x 46 x 108 cm. Courtesy of Anima Gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

Recently, Tammam Azzam has returned to painting with Storeys, a series of monumental works on canvas that communicate the magnitude of devastation experienced across his native country through expressionist compositions of destroyed cityscapes. Chronicling the current state of his homeland, Azzam delves into a cathartic exercise of reconstruction, storey by storey. Alongside these new paintings, he has produced a significant body of giclée prints and installations that depict the facets of cities through similar themes.

Tammam Azzam, Untitled, 2015, Acrylic on canvas, 160 X 118 cm. Courtesy of Ayyam Gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

Houssam Ballan's latest work portrays greed in its rawest form. The painting painstakingly portrays the characters of fear and sombre spirit through colours and setting expressing the intense desire of gluttonous accumulation without consideration, merit or humility. This work heavily draws on Houssam's observations and experiences in his homeland Syria.

Housam Ballan, Greed, 2019, oil on canvas, 140 x 140 cm. Oil on canvas, 140 x 140 cm. Courtesy of Fann A Porter Gallery and the artist

How to Host a Dinner Party

Sacha Abou Khalil , Untitled, 100 x 130 cm. Courtesy of the artist

How to Host a Dinner Party

Sacha Abou Khalil , Untitled, 110 x 130 cm. Courtesy of the artist

How to Host a Dinner Party

Bashar Alhroub, Mapping nowhere #2, 2020. Woodcut print, 1/1, 75-year-old paper, 23 x 32 cm each. 15 pieces. Courtesy of The Artinerary

How to Host a Dinner Party

Ahmed Askalany, Drinking Hippo, 2016. Polyester, 50 x 55 x 35 cm. Courtesy of Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art

How to Host a Dinner Party

Hiba Kalache, We Have Actually Been Stripped Of Our Rights Here, As Well As There. We Are Waiting Silently For ‘El Faraj’, For A Miracle To Happen, 2019. Ink acrylic on carton, 50 x 35 cm. Courtesy of Saleh Barakat gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

Hiba Kalache, What I Dislike About Farming Is That Nobody Will Pay Me Back My Losses. My Three Other Brothers Chose To Become Car Mechanics, 2019. Ink acrylic on carton, 50 x 35 cm. Courtesy of Saleh Barakat gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

How to Host a Dinner Party

The series of drawings, Encounters – ongoing, which first appeared in the Journal Art Margins (Vol. 8, no.3), stems from chance meetings on leisurely road trips around the mountains of Lebanon. The drawings act as markers of Kalache’s conversations with landowners, farmers and people directly working in the fields. Each conversation is represented by a simple tree branch, or a fragment of a (flowering) plant, belonging to the site and moment the encounter took place. This fragment indexes an encounter in which the farmer’s story, experience or relationship to the land and its borders was shared. Excerpts from these exchanges are also hand-written on the picture plane. In the directness of the creative process, and the abstraction of the conversations, this project alludes to, and yet blurs, the sectarian divisions upon which the ownership of land is based, as well as a present geopolitical context. The drawings share the marking of unplanned encounters through the representations of fragmented personal accounts along specific terrains and borders.

Hiba Kalache, My Shoes Got Worn Out. I Am An Honest Man, The Son Of An Honest Man, 2019. Ink acrylic on carton, 50 x 35 cm. Courtesy of Saleh Barakat gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

How to Host a Dinner Party

From the earth to the Crescent moon by a ladder, picturing the joy of nature and the presence of children and the Egyptian village as well as dogs and cats. An image of fantasy symbolised by the eye, bride, kite and the flag all representing Egyptian Folklore.

Salah Bisar, Untitled, 2018. Gouache on paper, 48 x 47 x 2 cm. Courtesy of Ubuntu Art Gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

A world of joy and fantasy depicting Egyptian Folklore in the countryside, picturing children and the donkey rider expressing their joy and happiness within vibrant cheerful colours.

Salah Bisar, Untitled, 2018. Gouache on paper, 48 x 47 x 2 cm. Courtesy of Ubuntu Art Gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

Montaser El Kharashi's work represents the concept of time as an abstract thought of the passing of days and captures the philosophy of us intertwining within time. An unfamiliar celebration of the present moment and our daily habits within romantic interactions. The fish represents the motion of livelihood and pursuit, as for the leaves they symbolise the purity that offers life and virtue.

Montaser El Kharashi, Untitled, 2019. Mixed media on canvas, 110.5 x 73.5 x 5 cm. Courtesy of Ubuntu Art Gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

Using cutout wood and coloured canvas at this experiment gives me another dimension to the art work. The work will be part of the space around and in touch with all the details surrounding it. As if you're taking the object out of the canvas and letting it fly in the space. My inspiration comes from my background story, my life and the impact of the places, thus I trying to reflect my reality by my art.

Mohannad Orabi, My Mother Dinner Table , 2017. Acrylic on canvas on cutout wood, 205 x 120 cm. Courtesy of the artist

How to Host a Dinner Party

Seroj Barseghian, Untitled, 2020. Oil on Canvas, 100 x 150 cm. Courtesy of Dastan Gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

How to Host a Dinner Party

Charles Khoury, Untitled, 2019. Acrylic on canvas, 120 x 100 cm. Courtesy of the Artist

How to Host a Dinner Party

Ghaylan Safadi's works focus on the cartoon imagery in order to produce sketch-like social vignettes. The compositions are teeming with diverse figures, each playing a role in narrating these disquieting scenes. The picture touches upon social and political issues, tells a story and unveils an uneasy truth about the troubled climate of today’s world.

Ghaylan Safadi, Untitled 19, 2020. Ink on cardboard, 60 x 75 cm. Courtesy of Art On 56th Gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

Larissa Sansour, Bethlehem 7, 2019. C-print, 75 x 100 cm. Edition of 6 plus 3 artist's proofs (LS064). Courtesy of Lawrie Shabibi

How to Host a Dinner Party

Mohammed al Shammarey, Homing Pigeon, 2020. Mixed media on canvas, 180 x 180 cm. Courtesy of The Artinerary

How to Host a Dinner Party

Mohammed Al-Shammarey, Homing Pigeon, 2020. Ink on paper, 120 x 120 cm in total for the eight drawings. Portfolio box of eight drawings, 120 x 120 cm in total for the Eight Drawings. Courtesy of The Artinerary

How to Host a Dinner Party

A choral quest towards shared experiences and aspirations via multiple forms of artistic expression, ranging from painting and sculpture, to photography, video and drawing, Moataz Nasr addresses social, philosophical, historical, geographical and political issues, his realm of investigation emerging from his diverse roots to embrace the rest of the world. Firmly rooted in his place of birth but blending seamlessly with the broader contemporary society, the artist employs his geographical origins as a pretext to go beyond political and religious borders and to project himself into a dialogue with different histories and cultures. His entire body of work expresses this desire to visualise collective dynamics, starting with a careful and sensitive documentation of personalities which are both individual and universal.

Moataz Nasr, The Mac Gate, 2019. Shell on wood, 60 x 60 cm without the base. Courtesy of the artist

How to Host a Dinner Party

Halim Karabibene, Siesta in Gammarth, Berlin Bizerte, 2014. Oil on canvas, 150 x 200 cm. Courtesy of Elmarsa Gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

Gouider Triki, Foule fous, 2015, Oil on paper on canvas, 101.5 x 66.5 cm. Courtesy of Elmarsa Gallery

How to Host a Dinner Party

Neda Razavipour, Untitled, 2015. Light box, 122 x 122 x 9 cm. Courtesy of Dastan Gallery