Saleh Barakat Gallery presents False Witnesses, a solo show by the influential Iraqi artist Dia al-Azzawi (b. 1939), whose iconic work is inspired by the long and shared history of the Arab world, from ancient Mesopotamia to the present day. Originally scheduled for October 2023, then rescheduled for September 2024, this exhibition is a biting critique of the corruption endemic to all political systems, seen through the prism of recent events in Iraq. Although the main body of works directly reference the October Revolution (2019–20), the destruction of Mosul (2014–17) and Aleppo (2012–16), and the sectarian divisions in Baghdad (2003 onwards), they are part of Azzawi's ongoing endeavour to highlight injustice in general and champion the voices of all victims of oppression through his work. The artist has also added a display of charcoal drawings from the celebrated series Night of Extermination (2023), which were made at the start of the genocide in Gaza, and his new daftar (artist’s book) called Gaza: The Pain that Opened My Daughter’s Eyes (2025), to emphasise the fact that the violent oppression of Palestinians is tantamount to injustice against us all.
The work of French-Lebanese artist Gabrielle Bejani is dream-like, yet somehow defined, deliberate. Although in a state of continual flux, her vibrant paper landscapes are imbued with a kind of undulating geometry, a certain regularity coming up against more organic surfaces shaped by ceaselessly shifting edges, colours, textures, lines, and a cast of characters with a resonance both highly personal and yet recognisable to the viewer. Myriad shades of muted and jewel-like blues, reds and browns, colour rich landscapes of sky-like space, while half-remembered narratives take shape among them.
The haunting presence that proliferates her work is grounded in materiality, the delicate tearing, cutting and arranging of pieces as much a part of the whole as the mushrooming forms and scenographies that dance with fluidity across her compositions. Bejani’s created world gives a feeling of rhythmic, almost metronomic movement, in an environment too large, almost sublime, in its awe-inspiring scale. Her figures, when they appear, perhaps on a boat, or simply curled around themselves, are tiny yet distinct against vast backdrops, almost, but not quite swallowed by the places in which they find themselves.
Here is a stamp of Lebanon, gently placed, tiny among a vast night sky peppered with stars. Her stamps, like her figures, seem to mark the scene with a scale incommensurate with their surroundings; such a small and mobile mark in all that wide, endless space. A deliberate gesture, such lightness and such weight.
Gabrielle Bejani was born in Paris, France in 1995. She is a French Lebanese artist currently based in London. In 2018 she received a BA in Fine Art and History of Art at Goldsmiths, University of London and in 2023 completed her MFA at Slade School of Fine Art (London). Since graduating she has participated in numerous exhibitions in London, Paris, New York and across Europe.
