This Syrian artist is capturing hearts with his whimsical art

Brightly coloured, vividly patterned butterflies are central to Syrian artist Majd Kurdieh’s art. Embodying contrasting emotions of fragility and strength, hope and self-destruction, the winged beings, reflect the current state of the world in the artist’s creations. In his latest exhibition – Butterflies – at Fann A’ Porter gallery, Dubai, Kurdieh delivers powerful messages combining art and storytelling through his signature childlike paintings featuring a set of whimsical characters flowing around butterflies.

“Butterflies are a strong symbol in my art. They have fragile wings yet they are brave and dare to venture out to unknown lands, even unafraid of flying into the flame of a candle burning their wings. To me they are like human beings navigating this delicate world,” reveals Kurdieh.

Born in Aleppo, Syria in 1985, the artist fled his homeland in 2013 during the conflict and now lives in Amchit in Lebanon, a land currently also ravaged by war. Inspired by nature and animals, he hopes his art can steal some of the sadness from the world. For over a decade the artist has sketched a set of little characters called Fasaeen (Arabic for tiny ones). Peppered across his canvases the Fasaeen -- a boy called Fasoon and a girl Fasooneh are always smiling even in the face of hardships and grief. They are accompanied by a group of animals on a mission to replace sadness with joy, paradoxically called, The Very Scary Butterfly Gang.

Kurdieh’s practice merges painting, sketching and literature. The instantly likeable characters are drawn in simple childlike sketches and painted with layers of vibrant colours. Each artwork is also paired with a poetic verse, often penned by him. At the current exhibition a canvas displays tiny Fasooneh, with her hair blowing on a windy day, riding above a canopy of deep blue butterfly wings with a quote that says ‘The sailor among her butterflies’. In another, the ever-smiling Fasoon and Fasooneh are peeping out of a fan of iridescent butterfly wings stating ‘If the place was kind to us, our story would have been different’.

“The Butterfly Gang does not represent one person or a nationality. They have universal appeal. Like the characters in my art, I wish the world was less cruel, more just, filled with happiness and love,” says Kurdieh, now in Dubai for his exhibition that runs till October 21. Sitting in the gallery's café he admits missing his two-room house in Amchit, nestled at the edge of a forest full of oak trees, jasmine and gardenia flowers. The escalating tension in Lebanon makes him unsure of his return to the studio, where he paints without an easel, with canvases stretched on walls.

The move to the scenic seaside town of Amchit a decade ago had a profound impact on Kurdieh’s art. “The war and displacement triggered a dark phase in my life, which was reflected in my art back then. But the peace and quiet I experienced in Amchit changed that completely and led me to the discovery of the Fasaeen,” says the artist. One of Kurdieh’s early series featuring the Fasaeen was called 'Land Needs Ironing' (2014 to 2016), a metaphor for a world without borders. At a retrospective held in Beirut in 2023, the series was described as being born in a decade fraught with war, a time when Kurdieh chose his brush as his weapon depicting peaceful yet potent messages. Highlighting painful fault lines created by political upheaval, he manages to tend to what remains of the innocence calling on the Fasaeen to lead the way to brighter days. “Smaller than a cherry blossom, the Fasaeen are bigger than the world, small in size but large in meaning,” points out the artist, “They love to run in the wilderness, they don't like houses and walls. They dream of blue skies, filled with birds, of open windows, hanging high up in the air.”

Over the years as his art evolved so did the characters. In his later works the cast also expanded. Besides the Fasaeen, there is The Donkey, the philosopher of the gang, The Butterfly, the symbol of the group, The Brave Mouse who believes nothing is impossible, The Rose Sword that protects the dreams from the thorns, The Owl who can see darkness beyond lines and shapes, The Wolf, whose tail is a tree and eats ugly thoughts, The Whale that represents sadness and The Elephant, which is very big because he's very giving.

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