Hajou BAHRAM

1952 Born in Syria
Graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf (Germany)

There is probably no greater satisfaction for an artist than that of inventing, of inventing himself, a universe. To give it life, to shape it little by little. A world of its own that can be changed at any time, over which no one has control, a world apart. Bahram Hajou, by the poetry of his line, by his characters with eyes obstinately fixed on the viewer, as if to encourage him to come and join them, has created a universe that is identifiable at first glance, and unlike any other. Encounter with a painting that is akin to a parallel world.
It is not only by his own way, by the expression of a technique, by the application of pastel tones that Bahram Hajou manages to lay down on the canvas this strange atmosphere, as emanating from the limbo of a consciousness kneaded with fraternity. Behind the thin layer of paint, there is the fierce desire not to see painting as a realistic art, but as an art of dreams and freedom …
The characters who cross his paintings, seeing you, seem to be wary, remain on their guard, like those animals who never get too close to humans, undoubtedly knowing too well what it costs to rub up against this uncontrollable, and potentially dangerous species.
There is no fear in those long faces, just a question: who are you? Are you friend or foe? It is perhaps an ideal universe that the one the artist describes to us here A kind of lost paradise where you do not know duplicity, nor cynicism, nor all those things that ruin your life and that you carry within you, in spite of yourself. It’s a bit of a utopian vision of a better world, a view of the mind …
Through seemingly light paintings, Bahram Hajou invites us to more humanity. The disarming looks of his characters… disarm, and immerse you in a painting without aggressiveness, whose first speech is a message of peace and brotherhood. Ludovic Duhamel