SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
-Centraal Museum/ Permanent collection/ Utrecht 2024
- On this land/ Barjeel ART Foundation/ Alserkal Avenue Dubai UAE 2024
-Het Noordbrabants museum /Imagen Home/ 2024
-Sharjah art Museum/ Parallel Histories/ collection Barjeel ART Foundation/ Sharjah UAE 2023
-We are all streams of the same water/ Galrie SANAA/ Utrecht 2023
-Museum Arnhem/ Between Borders (Tussen Grenzen)/ permanents collection 2023
-Kunst RAI/ Galerie SANAA /Amsterdam 2023
-Turning Notes/ Made Van Krimpen/ Amsterdam2023
-Egypt International Art Fair/2022
-Art The Hague/2021-Land Huis Oud Amelisweerd/Bunnik/2021
-A Sense of belonging/ Galerie SANAA/ Utrecht /2020/2021
-Art In Isolation/ Middle East Institute/ Washington/ USA/2020/2021
-ARTISTINTHEWORLD/Galerie Larik/ Utrecht/2020
-Art Utrecht/ Galerie SANAA/ Stadshuisbrug/Utrecht/2020
- SEE-SAW/ Just Shout #4/ Galerie 21/ Hamburg/ 2020
- SEE-SAW/ Just Shout #3/De Kersenboomgard/Atelier route /Utrecht /2020
-Amsterdam Art week/ Art fair 2020/
-SANAA Gallery Summer exhibition/2020
-Galerie Pygmalion / Galatea Prize 2019 / Short list exhibition2019
-SANAA Gallery Stages of life |Utrecht 2019
-Platform look|Just Shout Group exhibition 1 |Amsterdam | 2019
-De Utrechtste boekenbar|Just Shout|Group exhibition 2|Utrecht|2019
-Galerie 21|Hamburg |Group exhibition|2019
-5&33 art’otel|Amsterdam|Group exhibition|2019
-Herman van Veen Arts Center|Solo exhibition| Soest | 2018
-Stedelijk Museum Give us the Museum | Group exhibition | 2018
-Art Rotterdam| APKAR| Installation & Group exhibition| 2018
-Galerie Drentsschildergenootschap|Assen | 2018
-Kryon ArtGallery Amsterdam Dialogues, with Tanar Yilma |2017
-Tijdelijk Museum|Group exhibition|Amsterdam | 2017
-Art West|Amsterdam | 2016
-Life, Death & Art in Syria|Den Haag | 2016
-De Bieb|Wassenaar|2016|Solo exhibition
-De Peper|Amsterdam | 2016|Solo exhibition
-Ministry of Economy|Den Haag |2016
-Galerie 21|Hamburgt | 2018
-Installation at freedom festival|Amsterdam | 2017
-Kennedy Van Der Laan|Amsterdam | 2016
-De Fabriek|Zaandam | 2016
-Amunt Turk|Istanbul | 2017
-Old Damascus|Damascus | 2014
-Cultuer Centar Al Swidaa|Al Swidaa | 2013
EDUCATION
Damascus University
Faculty of Fine Arts
Drawing and oil paintings
2008/2014
AWARDS
Galatea Prize 2019
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
Karim gallery |Amman|2023
Aga Lab / Amsterdam/2020
Convento del Mertola./Portugal /2017/2019
KunstFaam / Schiermonnikoog/ 2017
Studio Yalla. / Amsterdam/2016
Arte del Cuevo / Spain/2016
Bajesdorp / Amsterdam/2016
Mor Kedi Sanat / Turkey /2015
WORKSHOPS
Stedlijk Museum | 2018
Stichting ter bevordering van Vrolijkheid | 2018
Kryon Art Gallery| 2017
Pages | 2017
Refugee Company | 2016 – 2017
Studio Yalla | 2016
In everyday life, we frequently use the term “Contemporary” to describe a person, fashion, art, literature, issues and trends that are happening now and associated with the current time - but does it really make a person contemporary if all they do is accept the current time and trends? The Italian Philosopher Giorgio Agamben maps the relationship of the term “Contemporary” with current time differently - it is the relationship with current time that adheres to it through disjunction. In order to be contemporary, one needs to detach themselves from the current time, and thus, one is more capable than others to perceive through the absence and darkness of time. Artists often seek out these kinds of disjunctions and perforations in personal, political and social structures by dislocating themselves in time and space. Artists like Raafat Ballan are among those whose identities have been disrupted and displaced as a result of politicalinstability and friction. He was born and studied art in Syria, a nation in which political rivalries within the populace resulted in bloodshed and violence, forcing many people to flee to other nations to live, where they are continually trying to remap their identities with new political and social surroundings. The act of remapping often leads to redefining, relocating and returning to the nostalgia and shared past which is lost but always remains in an individual memory.
Raafat’s life and works are intertwined and constitute a narrative around interactional identities and the remnants of his antecedents’ past and memories. His works can be interpreted through visual, political and psychological lenses. The visual language he uses suggests the existential issues of our time. His recurrent subjects, human figures that are silent, serious and isolated with dark contour lines facing fearlessly toward the viewer, establish a sensory and emotional connection with an alien identity that is deeply hurt and in pain. The placement of those figures on canvas are deliberately arranged in a vacuum of space without a background, highlighting the uncertainty of mapping their identities and searching for lost places and memories in a new location. Those figures once had a continuous identity in the form of amateur photographs of a family which Raafat collected from the streets of Hamburg or from Arabic newspaper clippings or from a literary book. Raafat adopts them as his own and gives monumentality to someone’s else lost memories by transforming them into a personal narrative, which resonates emotionally and enigmatically, and impacts the viewer’s deeper understanding of what it means to be human.
represented by Galerie SANAA
︎ ︎ ︎