Tammam Azzam

As an artist in exile, Tammam Azzam has seen much destruction solely through online photographs, including bombed out buildings that have been gutted to the core. “The emptiness made me feel so much fear,” he says. “I want to talk about that.”

Born in Damascus, Tammam Azzam (1980) graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Painting, in Damascus, in 2001. Initially working in mixed media, Azzam found himself looking for new ways to create art and express his feelings about the loss of his home country. He began to focus on the depth and tragedy of the destroyed cityscape that used to be home to so many people.

Tammam Azzam has contributed to international exhibitions such as the FUUStreet Art Festival, Sarajevo; Vancouver Biennale; FotoFest Biennial, Houston; Dak’Art: Biennial of Contemporary African Art, Dakar; Alexandria Biennale; and the 30th Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana; Museen in Sudtirol in Tirol, Italy; Haines Gallery, San Francisco; Ayyam Gallery, Dubai; Kornfeld Galerie, Berlin; Bienal del Sur, Caracas; Künstlerforum Bonn; For-Site Foundation, San Francisco; among others.