From Trump To Assad: Syrian Artist Reimagines World Leaders As Vulnerable Refugees
Darpan News Desk IANS, 09 Jun, 2017 01:47 PM
A Syrian refugee artist has spent 19 months creating a series of paintings in his Brussels studio showing world leaders as displaced or disenfranchised people and is showcasing them in a Dubai gallery.
Abdalla Al Omari’s “The Vulnerability Series” includes paintings of US President Donald Trump as a bedraggled refugee with a sleeping child in his arms, Russian President Vladimir Putin as a beggar, as well as former British Prime Minister David Cameron and former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“My aim somehow shifted from an expression of anger to a more vivid desire of disarming these figures, (to) picture them outside their positions of power”, Omari told Al Jazeera.
Omari started painting in Damascus shortly after the start of the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011. He fled and was granted asylum in Belgium.
Gallery visitor Sami Azraq said the portraits were a unique take on the refugee crisis.
“I think it’s an interesting way or it’s a nicer way to look at the problem rather than our usual news or social media or other outlets,” he said.
The bodies of Francesca Matus, 52, of Toronto, and Drew DeVoursney, 36, from Georgia, were found Monday afternoon in a sugar cane field in the country's Corozal district.
Global software major Infosys on Tuesday said it would hire 10,000 American workers in the next two years, a move seen as a fallout of US President Donald Trump's executive order on H1-B visas a fortnight ago.
The letter urges the Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to act on the knowledge and use the resources of his department to combat both hate crimes and their root causes.
No wonder the name of India, "al-Hind", is very common in Saudi Arabia and the Arab world. Several Indian goods that entered the Arab world were named after their place of origin. Indian swords, a favourite in the Arab world, were known by names such as Hindi, Hindawani and Muhannad.
