Tammam Azzam

Germany-based Syrian artist Tammam Azzam creates impressionistic protraits of his hometown of Damascus from fragments. Combining paint with scrap and shredded paper and newsprint, the artist presents startling imagery of a homeland devastated by years of violent conflict: collapsed buildings and broken surfaces of ancient, once-bustling cities.

Azzam's use of collage is both conceptual and practical. Trained as a painter, he found himself without his tools and studios after he left Syria for Dubai shortly after the conflict broke out. He turned to paper, a cheap and easily accessible material, to rebuild a home he could no longer return to or recognize. With their painterly compositions and layered, tactile surfaces, Azzam's collages are at once beautiful and devastating.