Fadi Al-Hamwi

Fadi Al-Hamwi was born in 1986 in Damascus, Syria, graduated from the faculty of Fine Arts, Damascus in 2010, and now lives and works in Berlin, Germany. He has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows across the world. Al-Hamwi’s multimedia practice encompasses painting, sculpture, installation and video, though always focussing on the human experience of war. Responding to the conflict that began to take place around him in Damascus in 2011, he explores dormant violence and desires, which in the right circumstances can become actualised. In his series of paintings "Society – 180 degree" he uses hybrid animal/human figures complicit in the everyday brutality of wartime. They are horrors of war personified, captured in ordinary acts such as giving a gift or answering the phone. The absence of background creates a feeling of flatness, both spatial and emotional. He explains “My art explores the lack of humanity in the Syrian war. It is meant to expose men and women debased to their bone structure.