A New Era

12.04.24 - 17.05.24  

Madé van Krimpen presents 'A New Era,' Ahmad Mallah’s first solo exhibition at the gallery. Mallah is an interdisciplinary visual artist whose practice includes oil painting, video, and performance art. The exhibition 'A New Era' showcases a series of oil paintings where Ahmad explores themes of queerness, gender questioning, intimacy, openness, acceptance, and nudity.

After many years of body shaming, he finally moved into a process of self-love and acceptance with his body and his queerness since fleeing the war in Syria to the Netherlands in 2014.

“Embracing and allowing myself to feel all the different sides of me has been a powerful and magical journey towards liberation, further integrating me into Dutch culture and entering my art practice into an ongoing contemporary interrogation of the body.”

For ‘A New Era,’ Mallah researched a diverse group who identify themselves as queer. The participants, who come from different parts of the Netherlands but mainly from Amsterdam, will be invited to his studio to talk about their shared journey towards liberation.

Through different mediums and layers, Ahmad is trying to understand each participant’s story by talking to them, photographing them, writing a text about them, and creating a painting that presents their queer era. Artistically, this project will have a theme of self-transformation and the philosophy of queerness through post-colonial practice. The talking session is approximately 4 hours, starting with an open and honest conversation about their experiences as queers.

He seeks to build a dialogue that allows for wider acceptance of diversity and equality in our Dutch society. By sharing queer stories with a larger public both online and physically at exhibitions, he aims to spread awareness of this important topic of our everyday life. “I also want to share my story and journey as well as engage in a back-and-forth conversation and dialogue.”

Ahmad Mallah (born in 1990) is a Palestinian artist who was born and raised in Syria. He graduated from the St. Joost Academy in Breda and currently lives and works in Amsterdam. He had to flee Syria when the war broke out. Consequently, much of his art revolves around themes of war, diaspora, as well as (his own) identity, gender, and the body. He sought to document his personal and political experiences through various art forms.

Education
Bachelor of Fine Arts, St. Joost, 2016 - 2020. Breda, The Netherlands
Exchange program Art & Interaction Avans hogeschool 2019, Breda, The Netherlands
Bachelor of Medicine, University of Damascus, 2007 - 2013. Damascus, Syria

His work has been featured in group exhibitions at Het Hem in Zaandam, Landhuis Oud Amelisweerd Museum, Art Nordic International Fair in Copenhagen, Unfair 2023, and Prospects Art Rotterdam 2024. Additionally, he had solo exhibitions at Exbunker in Utrecht in 2021, De Ploegh in 2023, and No Limits Art Castle in 2023. The artist received the Mondrian Fund Stipendium for Emerging Artists in 2022, among other government funding from Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, Provincial Funding Utrecht, and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds. Furthermore, he was nominated twice for the Galatea Art Prize.