Ahmad Moualla

Ahmad Moualla's early works consisted of figurative and mostly socially-critical themes, depicting people engaged in vague ceremonies and events, grouped together whispering. Now the people are all but gone and all that is left is a cloud of verse and literary dialogue, letters overlapping letters like a densely layered Jackson Pollock painting.  In some works the texts become like a pattern, in others they become a colour speckled mass of lush greenery. The tools of colour, tone and brushstroke appeal to the viewer’s sensory perception, creating a rich visual experience. The work’s key strength lies in Moualla’s ability to make that which is meticulously designed seem effortlessly executed and spontaneous.

Born in Syria in 1958, Ahmad Moualla graduated from the Damascus University of Fine Arts and then continued at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris. Since then he has participated in various exhibitions in Dubai, Cairo, Paris, Istanbul, Bahrain, Kuwait, Austria and Germany, among many others and his work was also included in the 2007 Sotheby's Modern and Contemporary Arab and Iranian Auction which took place in London. He is the recipient of various awards including the Lattakia Biennale and most recently, the Al Burda Prize in the UAE. He currently lives and works in Syria.