Firetti Contemporary watches Syrian artist Besher Koushaji rework despair into hope
- Last updated: October 18, 2025 | 10:12
Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer
Firetti Contemporary gallery is presenting Moments of Hope, a solo exhibition by Syrian artist Besher Koushaji (b.1984, Damascus, Syria), opening to the public November 17 and continuing till January 10, 2026. In the exhibition, Koushaji turns his gaze toward the fragile yet enduring presence of hope - a force that renews even when shadowed by despair and shattered by loss. In a world shaped by uncertainty, the paintings offer a space of quiet illumination, where beauty and endurance coexist in delicate but strong equilibrium.
The new body of work unfolds as the continuation of his long-standing meditation on the human condition, following his previous series, Reflections and Contemplations. Together, they form an evolving narrative on resilience, tracing the shifting relationship between memory, loss, and rebirth midwifed by hope.
Emerging from a collective history marked by displacement, conflict and unplanned transformation, Koushaji’s practice upends the despair of instability into the dawn of introspection and the noon of resurgence. His canvases become sites of remembrance and renewal, where sorrow softens into tenderness and difficult times dissolve into the light of new morrows.
Through his distinctive visual language of layered strata, the artist suspends fragments of reality between horizontal and vertical planes, where past, present and future overlap in translucent and geometrical rhythm. Across the layered worlds, flowers and fruits emerge as symbols of life. Lemons, pomegranates and anemones, bloom from the depths of recent memory, echoing the domestic rituals and landscapes of Damascus.
At the heart of the exhibition stands the figure of the woman - steadfast, contemplative and quietly radiant. She embodies continuity; she is the keeper of stories, and the symbol of endurance. Her presence anchors the compositions, bridging the personal and the collective, the intimate and the universal. Through the collection of the current works, Koushaji invites the viewer to inhabit moments of stillness, to sense how fragility has strength, how memory heals, and how light persists, even in the most apparently fractured and seemingly disjointed spaces.
Ultimately, Moments of Hope is both a remembrance and a renewal, a meditation on survival, tenderness, and the small acts of beauty that allow life to continue and be reborn. Besher Koushaji is based in Dubai. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Printmaking from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Damascus.
Throughout his career, he has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the Arab world and internationally, including major biennales and contemporary art fairs. They include Beirut Art Fair (2021), Intersect 21 Art Fair, Chicago (2021), Intersect, Aspen (2020) and Egypt International Art Fair (2020). Selected solo and groups exhibitions include Painting the Figure, Rosenfeld Gallery, London (2021); Shenzhen Biennial, China (2021); Scene, Wadi Finan Art Gallery, Amman (2019); Art on 56th Gallery, Beirut (2019) and Kalemat Sanat Galery, Istanbul, Turkey (2018).
Koushaji’s artistic language is rooted in intersecting layers and overlapping worlds that reflect the complexity of human existence suspended between past, present, and future. His works are defined by intentional ambiguity, symbolic imagery, and a delicate balance between beauty and pain. Flowers, fruits, and the recurring figure of the woman become visual metaphors for resilience, continuity, and the quiet persistence of life.
His art focuses on themes of memory, longing for a lost home, resilience, and the human condition, and his work frequently features symbolic motifs rooted in Damascene cultural memory, like lemons, pomegranates, and anemones. His background in printmaking and graphic design, as well as classical Arabic calligraphy and arabesque art, are evident in his work.
"Through a poetic and deeply human lens, he creates paintings that bridge dream and reality, weaving together memory, time, and emotion in a harmonious meditation on hope." Artsy.net underlines that “Besher Koushaji combines fine arts and graphic design, two seemingly contradictory disciplines, to produce mesmerising pieces. By breaking his images with lines and sections, he creates intricately layered distortions of his original subjects. Each artwork enriches the canvas with both light and dark – the positive and negative forces that permeate all existence.
“His capacity to combine contemporary, fresh expression with classical Arabic calligraphy, results in an unmatched depth and complexity. He intertwines Damascene architectural images, and bright, sunny palettes, creating intricate yet effortless pieces. While Koushaji’s initial work focused on the buildings of Syria, over time he has transitioned to infusing his paintings with portraits of the precious people he left behind.” Dubai Collection defines Koushaji’s work this way: “The painting,” it says, “rendered with acrylic colours on canvas, consists of several vertically intertwined layers of colour. These layers create balanced and interwoven reflections and transparent colour effects, blending simplicity with depth.
“Forming blurry and blurred scenes from the past and real-life situations, it is infused with visions full of hope and the future in a single scene and image, reflecting the multifaceted effects of life. He presents a unique artistic vision manifested in the composition of his paintings with overlapping horizontal and vertical layers. Each layer he draws reflects a distinct world that portrays a specific status. These layers vary between memories of the past and details of the present. Koushaji integrates multiple scenes into intricate details, expressing his experience interactively. Each layer reveals a type of situation or scene, adding depth to the interpretation of his complex art."