Legacy... A sculptural exhibition by Hisham Al-Maleih on beauty and death

Damascus-SANA

Legacy is the title chosen by the sculptor Hisham Al-Malih for his first solo exhibition after a large number of sculptural works that he accomplished in sculptural forums or for the benefit of public bodies or displayed in group exhibitions.

Through the exhibition hosted by Zawaya Art Gallery, Al-Malih presented 20 sculptural works that carry exceptional creative values ​​in his artistic experience, which he accomplished during the past two years with wood materials and sizes that varied between medium and large, and in expressive methods, carving towards abstraction in some works.

Regarding choosing the exhibition title, the sculptor Al-Maleeh said in a statement to SANA, “After a long search for a name for the exhibition, it will be able to attract the audience and at the same time is unfamiliar with its association with the art of sculpture and its antiquity.

Al-Maleeh explained that the geometric form and the formations associated with movement and mechanics with their sharp angles with smooth surfaces that impose their presence in the work are all cases of temptation to complete them on the surface of the material, trying to express his vision and ideas away from the specific orientation of a particular subject.

He said, "I express the immediate situation in which I live and unleash my feeling with the material to achieve the shape with an aesthetic energy that carries my vision, while making sure to include the scientific material within the artwork."

The sculptor Al-Maleeh used to work on most of his works that he previously accomplished with Italian marble, which requires special conditions in dealing with it and has become rare with its high price, which prompted him to turn to wood.

Al-Maleeh explained that the use of olive wood in most of the exhibition’s works came due to the association of this material with our heritage and culture that spanned history, but the work that caught the attention of the visitors of the exhibition was from shell fragments from a terrorist bombing that took place in the Al-Adawi area in 2013, where he re-exported and presented it in an artistic way based on the anxious balance in Presenting it to be a legacy that embodies our suffering during the war years and to devote it as a witness to the many lives that were lost.

Al-Maleeh finds himself as a sculptor in all kinds of sculpture and can deal with all materials, taking advantage of his artistic personality, which cannot adhere to a specific type of sculpting methods or with a material only, indicating that the realistic works represented by a series of honorary portraits presented by a group of Syrian writers carried great pleasure for him. His works, like the rest of the expressionist, abstract and Roeliev, which he presented in several events.

Regarding his optimism about the future, Al-Maleeh stressed that he will not stop sculpting, whatever his psychological state or no matter how difficult the circumstances around him are, because it is his work and his means of expressing himself, his ideas and his visions, and he must continue and be present in the artistic scene as a Syrian sculptor.

Mohamed Samir Tahan