Ayyam Gallery presents Vestiges, a solo exhibition by artist Athar Jaber, featuring his latest series of drawings and marble sculptures. Re-imagining the human form, through his works, the artist portrays the body as broken, fragmented, and vulnerable. The show will be open to the public until 1 April 2025.
The displayed series delves into the relationship between the human body and the external forces shaping it. The figures Jaber creates go beyond physical disfigurement, expressed through shattered limbs, distorted faces, and torsos. These sculptures serve as powerful symbols of how individuals are affected by the weight of the world. Despite their raw violence, they are sculpted to embody an ideal of beauty—yet their fractured state challenges the very notion of that ideal, revealing it as an illusion.
“[The exhibited artworks] contemplate our struggle to remain whole in a world that fractures us,” Jaber explains. “[It] is a meditation on what remains […] when time, loss, and experience have taken their toll.” Through these pieces, he invites the viewer to dwell in the tension of the incomplete, to think about the traces we leave behind, and to find the beauty in the unfinished.
About the artist
Athar Jaber (b. 1982, Rome, Italy) is an Iraqi/Dutch multidisciplinary artist whose practice encompasses sculpture, performance, video, photography, and text. He earned a Bachelor’s degree (2007) and a Master’s degree (2008) in Sculpture from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp, Belgium). In 2021, he obtained a PhD in the Arts from the University of Antwerp.
Currently based in the UAE, Jaber grew up between Rome, Florence, The Netherlands, and Belgium. It deeply influenced his artistic vision and serves as the framework for his work, in which he seeks to connect shared human experiences across cultures and time.
Praised for his technical expertise, Jaber pays tribute to classical sculpture while incorporating contemporary, experimental techniques. To create his somewhat poignant sculptures, he employs the Taille Direct technique that involves carving directly into stone or wood using a hammer and chisel. Revolving around themes of suffering and violence, Jaber’s works present the human body as distorted, fragmented, and broken, evoking beauty and brutality at the same time.
Jaber has showcased his art pieces in numerous exhibitions and art events, such as Sculpture Triennale (Gallery Campo & Campo, Antwerp, 2022); 6th Lububashi Biennial (Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo, 2019); Offerings (solo) (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba, 2018); Oosterhout Biennal (Saint Paul’s Abbey, Oosterhout, The Netherlands, 2017); and Art Cologne (Galerie Loehrl, Cologne, Germany, 2016), among others.
The artist’s accolades include the National Sculpture Prize “Ernest Albert” (De Garage, Mechelen, Belgium, 2021), the Vincke Soers Award (Antwerp, 2008), and the Theodoor Van Lerius Sculpture Award (Antwerp, 2007). His works are part of several prominent public collections, such as SMAK Ghent (Belgium), Barjeel Art Foundation (Sharjah), and FAO Headquarters (Rome), to name a few.
To get more information about Vestiges, please go to the official web page of the exhibition.
Additionally, you might be interested in attending Four Birds and One Soul, a solo show by Turkish artist Melis Buyruk.
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