Elias Izoli: Connected

Ayyam Gallery Dubai (DIFC) presents Connected, the solo exhibition of artist Elias Izoli. Featuring a new body of work, the exhibition highlights a recent conceptual departure for the Damascus-based painter. As a response to current events, Izoli has sought to address the suspension of ordinary life in the face of large-scale conflict through the imagery of Syria’s most celebrated figurative painter, Louay Kayyali (1934-1978). In doing so, Izoli comments on the relevance and urgency of Kayyali’s work in the political context of today.

Kayyali’s portraits of everyday subjects established a benchmark in modern Syrian art, and were shown throughout the country during his career. His widely recognised painting style, through which the poor and downtrodden were rendered with the elegant forms of Early Renaissance icons, spoke to the diverse spectrum of twentieth-century Syrian society while drawing attention to socioeconomic disparities. Izoli summons Kayyali’s figures, depicting them with painstaking detail in order to communicate how the melancholy that is displayed in the late artist’s compositions continues to appear, most vividly at a time when Syria is no longer recognisable. For the artist, these new works are connected to the conscience of Syria that Kayyali depicted ‘with the hope of finding a scene that would be less harsh, perhaps at a later stage.’

Added to the weight of the mid century portraits are indicators of how modern life is also defined by what Izoli describes as ‘the reproduction of fixed and mobile scenes,’ as the digital age has swept across the globe. Kayyali’s popular figures are shown clutching laptops and electronic tablets or otherwise sell American snacks and candy. Alluding to the effects of globalisation, Izoli complicates his conceptual homage to Kayyali with images that point to escapist culture, yet in the case of Syria such objects do not signal a break from the mundane but rather a momentary exit from the catastrophic.