ALI MUKAWAS BIOGRAPHY:
Painting, Prints
Born in Latakia, Ali Mukawas (1955) graduated from the Department of Painting, Faculty of Fine Arts at Damascus University in 1978. He became a well-respected professor of the visual arts, teaching in Algeria, the UAE, Oman and Syria.
Mukawas is characterized by his full aware work upon depth & breadth of the relationship between art, thoughts, memory and conscience. Reappearing continuously throughout his work is the central image of the tree. Alluding to its allegorical nature, he describes it as “an unusual but an epic legend that has to do with the rural man: his rituals, the collective imagination, the cosmic void and the existentialism of the artist...”
Painting in warm earthy colors, his expressionist work often portrays people gathering around a tree. Focused on the collective nature of humanity, he chooses not to individualize their facial features but, rather, leaves them ambiguous. Focusing on the intimate relationship of man to nature, the nostalgia of the past, and the rural environment of the coast, the works take on many layers of symbolism including a ritualistic spiritualism. The subject matter is not only captivating in its constant interpretation but also in Mukawas’ philosophical implications of fertility, the return to nature, and the rejection of the consumerist world.
The artist has many important works of art that formed his own colors of accomplishment through decades of experience at the level of art & life.
Exhibited in: Damascus, Amman, Beirut, Tunis, Doha, Dubai, Sharjah, Germany, 2006, Paris in 2007 ...
In 2013 his painting (Epic of Baal) was acquired by the British National Museum.