Bahram Hajou – Human Beings

The human being in the center. More precisely: the entirety of being human, with a focus on challenges and shortcomings in (inter)human or even political discourse. Subtle and yet relentlessly direct. In striking and energetic compositions that instantly triggered interpretations, memories and consternation in me. Trepidation and melancholy were followed by acceptance, compassion and many sensations more – an emblem of human existence. The figurative-abstract compositions of Bahram Hajou immediately drew me under their spell, when a collector friend showed me three works of the German Syrian painter.

With expressive passion Bahram Hajou breaks through to the human essence. So powerful and charged with tension that it was impossible for me to focus “neutrally” on technical-formal aspects. At least not without wanting to connect emotionally and enter a dialogue. In doing so, the images not only made me feel the coldness, anger, or pain of the figures, but also struck me at my core due to their abstract facelessness: a moment of my own unmasking, embedded in a philosophical discourse about being human.

In the summer of 2021, I had the honor of visiting Bahram Hajou in Münster – in his studio at home and in his light-flooded studio in the Kulturgelände Hawerkamp. A dinner with his wife Fatma, Syrian meze and rabbits in the garden full of fruit trees – getting to know Bahram Hajou. An artist who describes his technique as “technique-less”. An artist for whom people are the greatest inspiration and who wants to encourage (self-)reflection. An artist, a visionary, a human being. Whether dysfunctional relationships, the oppression of women or the battle of the sexes: Bahram Hajou’s large-format works are created in a multi-layered process that reflects the depth of content immanent in the images. In the first step, Bahram Hajou lays the canvas on the floor and mixes acrylic paints with powder pigments on the canvas itself. With rags and brushes he spreads blobs of color and scatters sand or ash into the color areas. Bahram Hajou then hangs the canvas on the wall, rotates it several times and looks for inspiration. In dialogue with the structures and islands of color, the image gradually emerges in layers. He sketches figures or heads with charcoal pencil, then gives them shape, sometimes translucent, sometimes pasty, or even paints over parts of them. The statements are as complex as the layers of material and color themselves, sometimes even hidden behind them. Inadequacies and grievances are simultaneously unmasked and painted over. His pictorial worlds are of universal expressiveness in an internationally understandable (pictorial) language.

Bahram Hajou is a citizen of the world. Born in Syria in 1952, he moved to Iraq in the early 1970s to study first civil engineering and then art. In 1974 he fled to Berlin because of the war and has lived in Münster since the mid-1970s. Here, Bahram Hajou studied archaeology and then completed his studies in sports and art at the College of Education. Since his studies at the renowned Düsseldorf Art Academy, he has devoted himself exclusively to art.Bahram Hajou’s paintings have been exhibited in over 100 galleries and museums around the world. I am proud that he and his works have found their way to Bratislava and I am happy to be able to show his paintings at the Benjamin Eck Gallery. Bahram Hajou: a painter, a citizen of the world, a human being.

Benjamin Eck, Galerist

Venue: Danubiana, Čunovo, Slovakia
Date: from 10.09.2022 – 23.10.2022
Opening hours: 10:00 – 18:00
Admission:
Adults – 10 €
Family (2 adults and 2 students) – 20 €
Pensioners (over 62 years old) – 5 €
Students – 5 €
Children (under 6 years old) – Free
Danubiana Club Members – Free
Disabled persons, persons over 75 years of age – Free

Find all tips for the best THINGS TO DO IN BRATISLAVA.