Ahmad Moualla

Born in Baniyas, in 1958, Ahmad Moualla is a prolific Postmodern Syrian artist who deployed a unique style lingering into figurative expressionism. He was best known for his intense calligraphic paintings and his complex figurative compositions. He graduated with a degree in visual communication from the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Damascus in 1981 after which he obtained a diploma in 1987 from the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs in Paris.

Moualla returned to Syria in 1988 where he taught at The University of Damascus from 1989-1996. Winner of the best foreign poster at the Munich Exposition, Moualla designed several book covers, posters, and murals. He participated in the scenography of several films and TV series and was appointed designer of many productions of the Syrian National Theater.

In Baniyas, overlooking the Mediterranean, Moualla opened his eyes to the large blue scenery; enchanted by the soothing rhythm of the sea. Two years later, his family moved to the city of Al Raqqa, a town rich in its historical background and its warm - earthy panorama.

Sounds and colors were the first to attract the attention of the young boy. He grew up in a family rich in artistic talents, characterized by a high sense of solidarity and a keenness for festive gatherings. Moualla recalls his childhood house full of friends and neighbors, sharing meals and discussions.

Open to diverse ideologies; his family members were ready to discuss Lenin and attend the Friday prayer in a mosque at the same time. All this developed a rich visual memory in Moualla’s subconscious and triggered a socio-political concern which will echo later in his creative outburst. His fundamental themes evolved around humanity and the often-strained relationship between the individual, society and its authorities.

As a youngster, he participated in several theatrical and stage designs with his brothers. He recalls stealing bed sheets, covers, and small furniture items from their own personal house to utilize on stage. But Moualla was never scolded, for he was upraised by a loving father who encouraged him to fulfill his passion for art.

Preceding college, Moualla created traditional Islamic calligraphy and paintings as a source of revenue. He sold paintings to barber shops and restaurants and illustrated headlines on banners and posters. Having studied graphic design and semiotics in college helped Moualla excel in his painting techniques and his symbolic representation.

In 1988 Moualla returned to Damascus ready to excel in the path of graphics, but instead prioritized painting as a career. He took off his journey producing figurative paintings in colorful settings depicting social ceremonies and gatherings. In the beginning, he strived to master his techniques inspired by artists such as Eugene De Lacroix, and Jacques Louis David.

Through the years, having surmounted his basic skills, he freed himself from the constraint of technique and rushed into an informal expressionist style; allowing the lucidity of acrylic paint, his spontaneous gestural brushstroke, the interaction of colors, coupled with the factor of chance, lead the way to his shapes and forms.

He would later bring technique to its pinnacles in one of his most famous bodies of works entitled Grey Ash in 2011, which was related to an earlier one in 1997 - dedicated to the late Syrian playwright Saadallah Wannous. Straying into abstraction, he painted dismal silhouettes in chaotic crowds and hazy ghostlike figures in gradations of smoky black and white tones.

His characters were stripped from any facial expression, gender representation, or significant apparel, borderless with no contour, yet brushed with luminous strokes emulating a water flood. In a surreal scenography, his characters would portray leaders giving a speech, musicians performing, or nations baffled around a huge hole in the ground.

He created compositions segmented into different strata within which different happenings were depicted. Dedicating a groundbreaking painting of 400 x 440 cm to the prominent thinker and writer, Mahmoud Darwish, Moualla depicts the dreadful weariness of man in times of conflict and decadence.

Merging the abstraction of the orient with that of the west, Moualla introduced traditional calligraphy into his large-scale figurative paintings, taking the written word beyond its ornamental aesthetic dimension. In his exhibition entitled Solemn, I Stand the Test of Time in 2014, he featured works including verses from Arabic poems insinuating his underlying messages.

In one of his large-scale figurative paintings, he inoculated verses from Al Mutanabbi and Al Marri poems that talk of a time of monkeys, hinting to the state of ignorance and compliance that humanity has reached to.

In other massive paintings, Moualla illustrated lengthy repetitive scripts of poems attributed to different poets, overlapped in patterns, sweeping the entire surface of an intensely colorful background. The calligraphic skillfulness he attained was deployed in a way to obscure the reading of a text, demanding his viewer to go beyond the meaning of the words into the underlying radiating beauty of the message.

Moualla currently lives and works in Paris.

Written by Wafa Roz © Dalloul Art Foundation