Walid El Masri was born in Syria in 1979. Prior to receiving his BA from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Damascus in 2005, he studied mosaic-making.
Born in 1973, Tunisian artist Omar Bey graduated from L’Institut Supérieur des Beaux-arts in 1998 and completed a residency at Cité Internationale des Arts in 2012.
Born in Syria in 1967, Thaier Helal has been a student of notable painters such as Mahmoud Hammad during his studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Damascus.
Born in Basra in 1974, Saddam Jumaily lives and works in Jordan. He has a bachelor degree in Plastic Arts and an MA in Fine Arts-Painting department from the Basra University College of Fine Arts, Iraq, where has also lectured in Fine Arts.
Born in 1980, Lebanese artist Alfred Tarazi received a degree in Graphic Design from the American University of Beirut. One of his great achievements is the “Krinzinger Projekte” residency, which took place in Vienna.
Born in Damascus in 1964, Bassem Dahdouh studied art at the University of Damascus and received his PhD from Egypt’s Helwan University.
Born in Bizerte, Tunisia in 1965, Imed Jemaiel shifted his attention to the arts after two years of medical school. In 1990, he earned a degree in Fine Arts, specialising in printmaking. In 1992, he started teaching at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Tunisia.
Born in Damascus in 1942, Simone Fattal studied philosophy in Paris and Beirut before emigrating to California in 1980, during the Lebanese Civil War.
Born in Hama, Syria in 1961, Safwan Dahoul was initially trained by leading modernists at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Damascus before travelling to Belgium, where he earned a doctorate from the Higher Institute of Plastic Arts in Mons.
Yasser Abd Elhay Mourad Rostom, more commonly known artistically as Rostom, is a Cairo-based sculptor, painter, furniture designer, and art director. Following his education at the Cairo Faculty of Art, he worked as an art director’s assistant in Egyptian television and in TV commercials.
A Syrian-Lebanese painter, born in Lebanon in 1968, Fathallah Zamroud studied interior architecture at the Lebanese American University, going on to spend seven years training with painter Louna Maalouf.
Naji Chalhoub is best known for his affective, scribbled line drawings of seemingly torturous subjects whose hollowed-out eyes and sinister smiles unsettle the viewer. His series The Mouth of Madness attest to the psychological dimension captured in his works, in which manic lines drawn in black ink – with the occasional inclusion of sparse red lines – mark feelings of depression, anxiety, and fear.