Galerie Claude Lemand

KEVORK MOURAD, IMMORTAL CITY.

The Rose Art Museum pre­sents Immortal City, an exhi­bi­tion of new paint­ings by acclaimed Syrian-Armenian artist Kevork Mourad (b. Syria, 1970), an artist known for his per­for­ma­tive col­lab­o­ra­tions with com­posers, dancers, and musi­cians. The exhi­bi­tion fea­tures work cre­ated in response to the war in Syria and the destruc­tion of the artist’s beloved city of Aleppo.

Kevork Mourad per­forms in his art both a vital act of remem­bering and a defiant demon­stra­tion of cre­ativity in the face of tragedy, medi­ating the expe­ri­ence of trauma through finely wrought, abstracted imagery that cel­e­brates his rich cul­tural her­itage while mourning its loss. Mourad’s paint­ings ask viewers to stop and bear wit­ness, to see the frag­ments of a rich cul­ture destroyed - tex­tiles, ancient frac­tured walls, Arabic cal­lig­raphy, and bodies crushed by war.

Working almost solely in black paint and incor­po­rating print­making tech­niques as well as his own unique method of applying paint through sweeping ges­ture, Mourad pro­duces paint­ings that are fan­tas­tical, the­atrical, and lyrical.