Tammam Azzam (Syria)

Tamman Azzam gained worldwide attention in 2013 when his work, Freedom Graffiti, went viral on social media. He had referenced Gustav Klimt's, The Kiss, as a paradoxical protest of his nation's suffering since the outbreak of the violent conflict in Syria. This iconic image of love was superimposed over images of war-torn buildings in his country.

The artist often employs digital media and a reference to Street Art as a means of making artistic and political statements that resist suppression. Freedom Graffiti is part of Azzam's Syrian Museum series, in which imagery taken from materpieces of Western art is overlayed on scenes of devastation in Syria to emphasize the contrast between some of the greatest achievements of humanity with the destruction and pain of which it is equally capable.

In his works on canvas, Tammam Azzam uses various media which include rope, clothes pins and other found objects. These are used to create pictorial depth, texture and space, while creating a contradiction between the ordinary objects and the grand terrain depicted by the artist

Born in Damascus in 1980, Tammam Azzam lives and works in Dubai. Selected solo and group exhibitions include Ayyam Gallery London (2013); the 30th Biennal of Graphic Arts, Slovenia (2013); Ayyam Gallery DIFC, Dubai (2011)