Houssam Alloum
“In the time of war and mayhem, people started to wear masks to hide their true selves. When everything is deformed, a mask is needed to hide what is ugly, painful, or harmful.
Exposing the deformities beneath the mask is what I am trying to achieve - in order to bring the truth back to the surface, to make it visible to the naked eye.
The meaning of life, childhood, love, happiness, sadness, pain, and even beliefs and the worshiping of the leader became distorted. War is painted with the color of gunpowder and metallic weapons.
Nothing is sacred, at the end it all comes to deformities and all the ugliness that it brings into this world. Wanting to go back to dreaming of a better world is what my work is all about.”
A graduate of Damascus University, Houssam has shown his works in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Dubai, Istanbul, Amman, Damascus and Sweida. He currently works with Syrian children teaching art to help them cope and recover from the trauma of war.