Ayyam Gallery invites everyone to explore Wavering Hope, its annual Summer Collective and landmark exhibition that celebrates the gallery’s 20th anniversary alongside a pivotal moment in Syrian history. Open until 5 September 2025, the show unfolds amid current seismic shifts in Syria and offers a collective reflection on survival and the liminal state between trauma and renewal. Displaying works by thirteen artists, the exhibition traces how hope can be fragile, stained, and incomplete, yet persistent.
The participating creatives include Safwan Dahoul, one of the most acclaimed painters in the Middle East, and expressionist artist Kais Salman. Dahoul’s haunting compositions channel surreal mourning, blurring memory and imagination, while Salman captures inner turmoil and grief through visceral, red‑colour brushwork.
Mohannad Orabi paints distorted, mid‑gesture figures whose expressiveness speaks to deep sorrow and isolation, while realist painter Elias Izoli captures Syrian life through melancholic, figurative forms. Artist and sculptor Nihad Al Turk’s surreal works reflect a dark and violent world: ruins and wounds manifest the hollowed psyche of conflict.
Artist and graphic designer Tammam Azzam, known for exploring the destruction and reconstruction of an image or space, layers diverse mediums (from painting to photo-montage) to reference the fractured physical and psychological landscapes of Syria. Artists Khaled Takreti and Yasmine Al Awa transform mundane objects, such as textiles and chairs, into witnesses of conflict: preserved memories turned personified artefacts.
Abdul‑Karim Majdal Al‑Beik utilises texture, material, and unconventional mediums to create works which delve into anguish and displacement. Abdalla Al Omari takes cues from his displacement experience, using portraiture to underscore collective trauma and survival. Abstract artist Thaier Helal turns to figuration to turn his canvases into acts of visual resistance and commentary. Meanwhile, Othman Moussa employs satire to confront political realities and cultural absurdities.
Wavering Hope communicates a sustained resilience not only through what is depicted but through the very persistence of creative practice amid erasure and upheaval. It meditates on hope and serves as a testament to endurance: art as defiance, art as memory, art as renewal.
To get more information about Wavering Hope, please visit the official web page of the exhibition.
In addition, you might be interested in exploring the Printed Nostalgia group show and New Western Views (Preview) by Marwan Bassiouni.
