DIALOGUE DEGREE ZERO

Saddam has participated previously in various thematic group exhibitions. His unique style is both raw and captivating and deals with transforming the mundane and routine into something dynamic, and out of the ordinary with his painting.  Saddam's external representations are reflections of his inner life, his paintings are filled with strange animal like, dream-like forms. This" inner self" deconstruction is externalized through various forms that hovers consistently throughout his work and he would argue around us in real life, following us wherever we may be in our day-to-day activities and moods. This September, Saddam with this exhibition will mark a turning point as he fills the entire gallery with major new and interesting outworks.

While his technique is an important part of both the visual and conceptual behind his work, these pieces on their own exist in an imaginary world. The composition of the pieces is dictated mainly by strong characters and as a leitmotiv the apparition of a strange symbolic animal.

Saddam was born in Iraq, and currently lives and works in Amman, Jordan. Saddam is an active painter, curator and graphic artist, successfully maintaining a strong and recognizable style in all his works. Speaking about his works:

“The thing, I would like to do. I will not drag the idea by its collar in order to place it in a frame, I leave the garden door open for any idea to come hungry and chew the grass lovingly. Then it becomes a shining life in a frame, it gets rest and sleeps under a tree. I will not over-power painting with my thinking; the idea is there in its general form like a dropped stone on a footpath. There is a deep idea like a young star; it is the idea of painting itself. Painting is an idea, a creature that we cannot ride like a horse; it is more sacred and present in us, wider in imagination and in dream it will land like a butterfly. I will leave the window open for its sake to come in, bringing several creatures. It might come in the form of an alien creature – no matter! Bottom line it has to come without a rope, without stings, virgin, wild, absolute, pure and honest. Painting says what we cannot hear.

What are our diaries? How can we transcribe them?

There is always something deeper, something essential in our life that drops its shadow in the rooms of our soul, we stare at it, it stares at us. It cannot hear what we are saying. It whispers words that we cannot hear. It pants and perspires it is close and touches our life, something strange, obsessive, peaceful, lovely, it has an excessive presence, lively intense like a dream of water in the life of a fish. We miss what it means. It doesn’t feel our fears, going down the steps of our days, going up the stairs or our souls, slowly. We smell its strange odor, it smells our presence. It makes us consider our existence and destiny, the fact that there is an alien creature inside each of us. A creature that doesn’t necessarily have two legs, a nose or a tongue but it is present and dominates our life.”

CATALOG