Mohamad Labash is one of Syria’s emerging contemporary artists. He graduated in 2013 from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Damascus University, and his work has since been exhibited internationally in London, Paris, Milan, Washington DC and in Nara, Japan, amongst others.
Labash’s work is charged with powerful depictions of emotion-with an emphasis on the Machiavellian volatility of human nature. This art form is shocking because it challenges the viewer to confront the tragedy of man-made disasters. This commentary is more apt now than ever, as our news feeds fill up once again with the tragedies of thousands of displaced Syrian and Turkish men, women and children suffering while the action-less world stands still.
For the remainder of February, we would like to bring into spotlight Labash’s gut wrenching commentary on human nature and the hazardous effects of human action and inaction alike.
In this poignant watercolour painting, Labash depicts five disembodied heads hanging from a wash line amongst two dead fish. The heads look as though they had been violently severed off, and the shock and horror of this act is emphasised through the artist’s highly precise rendering of human facial expressions. This painting functions as a powerful political commentary on the dehumanisation so intrinsic to political extremism and brings into focus the stark consequences of human violence.
In this image, Labash uses wide watercolour strokes to depict a frenzied group of men and women stripped down to the flesh. Themes of human violence seem to reappear here, as the artist leaves facial expressions abstract, allowing the phsyical tension of his subjects to come to the forefront. Labash proves once again that in creating art that is visually daring, he challenges the viewer to confront difficult topics such as death, injustice and complex political issues surrounding war crime and torture.
