Majed Sabouni

Syrian painter Majed Sabouni, born in Hama in 1944, is the subject of a solo exhibition at Zawaya Gallery of Fine Arts in Damascus, which opened on 21 September 2026. Bringing together 27 works from different periods of his career, the show traces decades of change in his use of colour, form and subject.

Sabouni, a graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Damascus University, moves between abstraction, landscape and the human figure. He describes painting as a continuing process of discovery, in which each work develops gradually through brushwork and layers of colour rather than following a predetermined plan.

Several paintings return to human themes, including displacement, a subject that carries particular weight in Syria today. Speaking at the opening, the artist Adnan Hamida said Sabouni's work had helped strengthen connections between generations of Syrian artists.

Mohammad Sobhi al-Sayed Yahya, head of the Syrian Fine Artists Union, called him "an established figure in Syrian visual art whose work has left a mark on the country's art scene". For visitors, the exhibition is a rare chance to see a survey of a painter from the pioneering generation of Syrian modernism, in the setting of an older Damascene house.