Promises are for never: Bashir Makhoul eyes pledges in Zawyeh Gallery show

Zawyeh Gallery is currently hosting The Promise, a solo exhibition by renowned Palestinian artist Bashir Makhoul. To run till June 30, in The Promise Makhoul unveils his latest works, exploring themes of home, displacement and memory through visual narratives. The exhibition title encapsulates a poetic and ambiguous statement of intent—an assertion that is both an event and its upending. A promise is made and, inevitably, can be broken. The duality is at the heart of Makhoul's practice, where creation and fragmentation, completion and rupture, coexist. At the core of the exhibition is the recurring motif of the house, depicted in its most elemental form: a cube with a door and a window.

- Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer

The geometric structures, arranged in dense and chaotic formations, reflect the overcrowded conditions of refugee camps and marginalised communities. Despite their elegant colour palettes, the artworks reveal a stark contrast between aesthetic beauty and unsettling political realities. Featuring works in painting, electroplated sculptures, printmaking, handwoven wool and silk tapestries and mixed media works, the art explores identity, fragmentation, dispossession, and longing. Through layered symbols such as home, petals, and patterns, Makhoul examines the fragile balance between loss and hope, chaos and order, destruction and rebirth.

Home for him is both a sanctuary and a site of loss. It is not only a place where one builds memories, but also a location where one loses them. Home therefore does not offer only security, but also gives birth to instability and loss, especially if home is a refugee camp. Makhoul explores his relationship with his homeland, examining its emotional and psychological impact. He works between lived reality and nostalgia, presence and displacement, permanence and impermanence.