The images look familiar — despondent refugees standing in queues, hoping to find food, shelter, or a safe place to start a new life. But these are not the kind of refugees we see in media images. The forlorn figures in Abdalla Al Omari’s paintings from The Vulnerability Series, are powerful leaders. a dishevelled Donald trump, with a baby in his arms, holding what is left of his worldly possessions in a small plastic bag, and showing a picture of his lost family. Bashar Al Assad is seen as a distraught man, wading through a turbulent ocean, under an overcast sky, bewildered by his circumstances.
Unlike the media images of refugees that evoke sympathy, sadness and support, Al Omari’s paintings of powerful leaders as refugees raise myriad questions about contemporary socio-politics, the power games played by our leaders, and the unnecessary suffering of ordinary people. Through these familiar and yet unfamiliar moments of vulnerability, the Syrian artist tells us about the power of vulnerability, and the vulnerability of power, reminding us of our universal predicament.
Al Omari graduated from the University of Damascus, and began his career in Damascus, shortly after the conflict in Syria began by depicting the experiences of civilians, especially children who are caught in the crossfire of war. He began the Vulnerability Series after the situation in his country forced him to move to Brussels.
In this series, the artist has reimagined controversial world leaders as disenfranchised or displaced civilians. Although his realistic portraits are inspired by the propaganda images used in political posters, the figures have been stripped of any suggestion of strength, charisma and righteousness, and rendered like the media images of helpless refugees.
“Initially I was driven by my own experiences of displacement, and the anger I felt about the situation in Syria. I was intrigued by the ‘romantic’ idea of vulnerability and the impact it can generate while depicting these subjects. But eventually I arrived at the paradoxical nature of empathy. As I developed the series my aim shifted from expressing my anger to wanting to disarm my figures, and picturing them outside their positions of power. I wanted to take away their power — not to serve me and my pain, but to give those leaders back their humanity, and the audience an insight into what the power of vulnerability can achieve,” Al Omari says.
The Vulnerability Series will run at Ayyam gallery, Alserkal Avenue, Al Quoz until July 6
