Fann À Porter is hosting Ever in Reform, a solo exhibition by Syrian artist Mayar Obeido that displays his latest expressive works. They explore the endless cycle of transformation and repetition, expanding upon Obeido’s recurring characters to present reimagined variations of familiar forms. On view until 24 May 2025, the exhibition is the result of the artist’s investigation into how time alters elements and how those elements, in turn, reshape one another.
A centrepiece of the show is a reconfigured table, appearing for the first time as a standalone subject in Obeido’s practice, accompanied by a set of studies in black ink and coloured paper. Through a fluid, intuitive approach, Obeido discovered the table evolving akin to animation, shifting frame by frame. In some drawings, its legs morph into the hands of his characters, while in others, it is a distinct entity.
Charcoal remains Obeido’s primary medium, chosen for its malleability and potential for erasure and reconstruction. Repetition, as a method and as a motif, is crucial in his work. Guided by the subconscious, his figures often double as self-portraits: an inquiry into the question: What is a shape capable of? His process captures the continuous evolution of form, mapping every phase in an unending pursuit of transformation.
The exhibition’s broader narrative reflects themes of place, location, and fragmentation. Obeido navigates fluctuating environments where boundaries blur, evoking the tension between permanence and change.
About the artist
Mayar Obeido (b. 1995, Damascus, Syria) is a Dubai-based artist whose practice encompasses painting, drawing, and sculpture. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Damascus in 2017.
In his work, Obeido focuses on anonymous human figures and their interaction with surrounding spaces, including inanimate objects. These relationships often serve as meditations on everyday life. His mixed-media works, which combine acrylic, charcoal, collage, and cuttings from Arabic newspapers, draw connections between the personal and the political. Figures seem to dissolve into their environments, overwhelmed by the content of the texts or consumed by inner responses to external realities. In other of Obeido’s art pieces, an apple becomes a recurring motif: a symbol of nourishment that gradually takes on human traits and absorbs the emotional states of the figures it appears alongside.
Obeido has displayed his works in several exhibitions across Syria and the UAE, including Pop Up Group Exhibition (Fann À Porter, Dubai, 2024); Apple (Zawaya Gallery, Damascus, 2021); 30 (Mustafa Ali Gallery, Damascus, 2022); and Youth Artists (Al Hekmiah Gallery, Lattakia, Syria, 2020). In 2018, the artist received the Spring Exhibition Awards from the Ministry of Culture.
To get more information about Ever in Reform, please go to the official web page of the exhibition.
In addition, you might be interested in visiting Through the Window by Elias Sime and A Radical Intimacy of Hanging Out, a group show at Aisha Alabbar Gallery.
