Abdullah Murad

Recognized internationally, Abdallah Murad was born in Homs in 1944. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts of Damascus in 1970. He is a member of the Syrian Fine Arts Union and of the Union of Arab Artists.

Murad's paintings are influenced by Arabesques and by Fauvists colors and by the abstract expressionism movement. Indeed, he is considered as one of the pioneers of abstract expressionism in the Arab world. His paintings are experimental and extravagant in the use of colors, with layers that vary in thickness, impasto with transparent textures, using collage as well. A surface treatment of contrast and asymmetrical compositions dominate his pieces, which allow an interesting alternation of expansion and space.

Abdullah Murad’s paintings are celebrations of line and colour. His works eternalize fleeting moments through the marriage of the abstract and the organic, the conceptual and the literal. His canvases are charged with the tensions of these dualities and are layered with thematic elements of displacement, loss and metamorphosis. The raw canvases contain accumulations of art historical references and material texture, producing ephemeral and unfinished accumulations.

In 1984, He won the first prize of the exhibition rendering tribute to Picasso and Miro at the Cultural Center of Damascus.

Murad's work has been exhibited in diverse group and personal exhibitions in Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Great Britain, and in other Middle East countries. His work is part of several public and private collections in France, Germany, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Turkey, the Emirates and in Bahrein at the Museum of Sharjah.