Khaled Basmadji

“Woman is the wheat of life and a dove of peace”

Exhibition preview: 25 October 2016, 6:00 p.m.

Open until 13 November 2016

Khaled Basmadji

Born on 21 April 1944 in Aleppo, a city in northern Syria, where he lived and grew up. On completion of his secondary education he moved to Poland, where he studied at Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences until obtaining a doctorate. Later he returned to Syria and worked as a lecturer at the Medical University in Aleppo, where he was awarded the title of professor.

Painting has been his passion since he was a student and his works have been presented at several individual and collective exhibitions. In 2012 Khaled came to Poland for a month's holiday and did not return to Syria because of the increasing military conflict and closure of airports. Unable to come back, deprived of all his possessions and pension entitlement, he remained in Poland. He has always felt gratitude to this country and considered it his second homeland.

Basmadji is neither a refugee nor an immigrant – he is a Polish citizen, which is why he is not entitled to any assistance. Khaled found a basement room in one of the tower block estates in Gdańsk, where he paints to earn a living and raise funds to support his friends in Syria. Art is his weapon to fight the horrors of war in his country. Khaled's paintings are a feast of colours, where the “red of his nation's temperament” mixes with the “black of despair”. The paintings shown at the exhibition resembles multi-coloured mosaics, where the main focus are women – cradling children in their arms, lost in thought, in silent prayer, worried but at the same time strong and composed.