Acclaimed Syrian poet, author and screenwriter, the multiple award-winning Khaled Khalifa writes a poignant elegy to Damascus and its artists.

Throughout the development of Syria’s art scene, art associations have played a key role in the support and encouragement of artists, as well as in the creation of major art events and exchanges between Syrian artists and their neighbours in the wider Middle East as well as on a global stage. In this essay, Atassi Foundation Art Writing Prize winner Lubna Hammad outlines the major movements of the 20th century and their key players, charting the most significant art associations of each era, their impact and their lasting legacies. This essay focuses on reviewing major art events during this period of time, culminating in holding the First Arab Conference of Fine Arts in Damascus in 1971 and the establishment of the Arab Plastic Artists Union in 1973.

NB: All dates for mentioned artists and activities are included where possible, except where there is no information available on the public record.

With an intensity so characteristic of his work, Omran Younis clearly expresses Syrian suffering. Filled with horrific scenes of corpses and coffins, dismemberment, fear and panic, his work traces the symbols and inhumanity of war in a way that evokes heart wrenching emotions. Grisly details are rendered in charcoal over layers of acrylic paint in a strong reaction to – and social commentary on – the world around him, often with the use of recurring motifs such as hellish dogs, burgeoning prickly pear cactuses or red, red watermelon slices. Born in Hassakah, Younis (1971) received both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Department of Painting, Faculty of Fine Arts, Damascus University and his work has received critical acclaim both at home and abroad. He remains based in Damascus.

Born in Qamechli, in North-East Syria in 1951, Youssef Abdelke is regarded one of Syria’s most celebrated painters, recognisable for stark yet visually rich monochromatic paintings that, in the words of Alain Jouffrey, are testament to his being as “a great observer of living phenomena, a meticulous, disciplined and methodical engraver, yet also a poet with images.” In 2005 he returned to Damascus after 25 years of self-exile in France, where he had lived since 1981. In his works, recurring leitmotifs such as fish, knives and skulls are often depicted against empty backgrounds that only serve to throw his chosen subjects into even sharper relief, and his works can be found in the collections of institutions such as The British Museum in London and the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. Here, he sits down with fellow painter and close friend Fadi Yazigi, who is also based in Damascus to discuss issues of light, emptiness, the complex, symbiotic relationship between Eastern and Western schools of art and thinking, and the balancing of aesthetic and political value to artworks.

Artist and photographer Reem Khatib graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus in 1992, followed by studies at the Higher Institute of Drama. She has worked as a scenographer at the National Theatre in Damascus since 2013, and is also founder of the Shadow and Light project, which creates educational theatre workshops for children. In addition to working on numerous other such projects, including working with refugee children and collaborating with Tate Britain, she seeks to bring the visual arts 'into people’s streets' in order to make it accessible and connect with a wider audience. Here, she has chosen a selection of her photographic works, taking us on a tour of the Damascus in which she lives today, a deeply personal, poetic tour of its people and streets.

Walking along two different paths, the sculptural works of Safaa Alset and Yamen Youssef may differ in content, style and lived experience, but on another level, are united in a use of natural materials, investigation of scale, and, perhaps most importantly, in the deep effect of Damascus – and the larger situation in Syria – on their work

From art galleries and cultural centres to awards, grants events and artistic criticism, writing and production, no sector of the Syrian visual arts scene has been unaffected by the ongoing calamities of the 2011 uprising. Alaa Rashidi reviews the current status quo of the Syrian visual arts scene, exploring the diverse and often contradictory contexts in the field of critical writing on Contemporary Syrian art.

In the paintings of Soueida-born Houssam Ballan, historical eras and influences collide and mingle to create something new. Faces familiar from Roman sarcophagi, Byzantine icons, togas and blue jeans all take place in the same world, and faces stare out at the viewer amid backgrounds from harlequin puppet theatres or even the desert-like surreal landscapes of Dali. Seeking to capture what he refers to as the “timeless condition of humanity”, all these disparate elements come harmoniously together in a signature style that creates a serene, alternate plane of existence – a place both within and out of time, familiar yet strange, tangible yet intangible – like blurring faces in a dream, the harder one tries to grasp at it, the more it eludes. A teacher at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus, from which he graduated in 2005, Ballan’s works depict people and society in the midst of daily conflict, yet there is no violence in them. The resulting effect is of paintings that are at once intensely figurative, yet verging on abstraction. Here, he tells us about the evolution of his work over the last 15 years and his process to create works that are timeless and multidimensional.

Damascus-born Tarek Butayhi is best known for his dreamy portraits of women – often captured in everyday private activities, as part of the artist’s desire to redefine the way in which women are presented in portraiture as banal objects of desire. Moving to Beirut at the start of the war, since returning to Damascus, his work has taken on a different dimension, capturing the plight of the people around him as together they navigate a broken city.