Eleven Years

Eleven Years, a solo exhibition by Syrian artist Khaled al-Attar, opened on Sunday 20 September 2026 at the Fateh Moudarres Studio Gallery on Al-Najma Square in Damascus' Shaalan district. It is the first exhibition in the restored studio of Fateh Moudarres, one of the founding figures of modern Syrian painting, which reopened the same evening in the presence of Syria's Minister of Culture, Mohammad Yassin Saleh.

The exhibition brings together a selection of al-Attar's works that reflect years of research and experimentation. The artist describes it as a long process of experimenting with the elements of painting, focusing on composition, colour relationships and the use of symbolism to reinterpret reality through art.

Al-Attar began as a political caricaturist before turning to expressionist painting, murals and conceptual projects after the 2011 Syrian uprising, and spent years in Istanbul, where he took part in solo and international exhibitions. Speaking at the opening, artist Walaa Tarakaji said the show reflects "al-Attar's continued exploration and his development of a distinctive visual language," while artist Samah Zarzor noted that his symbols and lines become part of the meaning of each work.

The pairing carries weight. Al-Attar himself oversaw the restoration of the studio, part of the Restoring Syria's Visual Arts Memory project run by the Ministry of Culture with the Damascus Foundation for Culture, Thought, Arts and Development, with the aim of turning it into a cultural and research space. That a younger artist's return should inaugurate a landmark of Syrian modernism makes Eleven Years one of the more resonant moments in a month that has also seen Damascus host its first Art Week.