Born in Musyaff, to the west in Syria in 1985, Syrian artist Khaled Dawwa graduated from the School of Fine Arts north of Damascus in 2007, Sculpture section. From the start of the revolution in 2011, He participated in the protest cries of demonstrations then joined the adventure of artists and activists for the creation of an independent cultural center in Damascus, The Al Boustan workshop, Launched by the actor Farès Helou.
Despite police pressures, Khaled works for three years in this place. He will find himself almost alone, in 2013. "My battle, It was not to abandon the project; Otherwise it was as if we abandon hope ".
In the middle of 2013, The Ghouta district where its workshop is located is bombed, undergoes chemical attacks and seriously injured Khaled. He is imprisoned when he leaves the hospital. During two months, He undergoes a system of terror in different prisons, In the midst of the agony of tortured prisoners and bodies.
"It was a terrible period, it was summer. There were thousands of people; each day, at least ten people would die ", he describes. "Their bodies stayed two days next to us, Nobody removed them from the cell ... It was done on purpose. "
He remains stunned by this crossing of the unspeakable who lives in his nightmares. "They broke the memories in my head", he launches.
At its output, It is forcibly incorporated into the army, which he will succeed in escaping before fleeing his country by Lebanon in September 2013 and going into exile the following year in France where he arrived in October 2014. He first settled in Marseille, Then joins Paris and opens a workshop in Vanves.
This long journey of a year and a half, during which he knew the hospital, Prison in its cell, enrollment, exile, Intimately linked to the events that take place in Syria, Today crosses his work and prints a deep brand to him.
His sculptural practice is rooted in the social and political history of his time and in his conviction that art has a role to play there. The Syrian Revolution and, wider, The upheavals that have affected the world since 2011 have led him to question the relationship between the people and the power, and between art and memory. Creation is a political weapon as much as a personal reconstruction tool.
His "Compressed" series, The first presentation in France at the Charivari gallery, evoked a confinement as well physical and mental.







His land men (predilection material from Khaled Dawwa) and bronze (which gives a character of immortality to politicians) evoke the duality between the people and the authority, between fragility and solidity. Reduced to helplessness by their statification or pierced with infinity of holes, These male figures glued to their seat embody the ambivalence of power, whose target exceeds the only character of Bashar El Assad. The “Standing” series is a physical opposition to the tyrant who presents inert ventripotent men seated in their chair and call for dignity.
The artist expresses there are a rich point of view and makes the denunciation of the potentates, degradation, Talk about absolute power, of the expression of the power and destructive of tyrannical power.
The one who is behind his own injuries, of his imprisonment, Then from his flight to France. But it's not just the Syrian situation, The political news of his country and the Arab countries or the methods of destruction he evokes. By decorating his dog characters, explosive barrels, electoral urns, He symbolizes the one he calls: "Him", the power.
Anchored in the tragedy of history, Khaled Dawwa's work has the features of satire, provocation, absurd, and was able to evoke "Ubu king", Alfred Jarry's play (1896), whose character has close physical features. But Khaled Dawwa's work is not a farce, It’s an international reality, An invitation not to give up.
Because as Khaled Dawwa says about the exhibition "Debout!" (The king of the holes) ":" the holes, In some of my work, are a way to undermine the solidity of the system, to weaken it.
This is my way of expressing my frustration in front of the state of the world around me. I spent hours punching the statues, those of earth like those of bronze. This is an attempt to unravel the mass, To break the wall. »»