2019 Exhibitions
Swapped at Birth
Ahmed Elkhalidi
12 to 23 Feb 2019
Opening 12 Feb at 6pm
At THE MILL Adelaide - Australia
SWAPPED AT BIRTH Art Exhibition to be held in Adelaide
by Ahmed ElKhalidi with creative collaboration by Rua Hashlamoun
Jordanian artist Ahmed ElKhalidi documents the journey from Jordan to Australia in an exhibition to be part of the 2019 Adelaide Fringe Festival in Australia. Ahmed uses symbolic patches of memory in digital collages to explore places where two familiar environments are interchangeable.
ElKhalidi explores the crossover of life, perception and memories from his birth country and his adopted country. For ElKhalidi this was by choice, although he acknowledges that, for many others, this crossover is by circumstance.
Ahmed delves into memory, childhood experiences and family photographs from his Palestinian heritage. Using a blend of recent and historical photography, words, symbols and photojournalism, Ahmed reveals a personal story of identity where each environment is swapped, overlaid and blended.
Creative collaboration by Rua Hashlamoun records the works of two artists’ stories. They ask the viewer to question the memories the viewer might keep in the same situation. A visual storytelling, this exhibition both resonates with, and facilitates, connections for the many with similar experiences as migrants or refugees.
The exhibition was held in Amman in 2018 under the patronage of the Australian Ambassador. Its Adelaide iteration is made possible with the assistance of the Council of Australian-Arab Relations (CAAR), which supports projects that enhance economic, cultural and social relations between Australia and the Arab world.

CONFERENCE OF BIRDS
Zaina El Said &
Mohammad Awwad
9 February to 7 March 2019
Opening Saturday 9 Feb at 6pm
Zaina El Said and Mohammad Awwad jointly exhibit at Jacaranda Images, inspired by teachings of enlightened sages on the meaning of life.
The Persian poem 'The Conference of Birds' by the 12th century poet and Sufi thinker Farid Ud-Din Attar is the title of this exhibition and one of the inspirations for the works within it. The journey and the meaning of life have perplexed civilizations forever. Writers, religions, individuals have attempted to find an answer, with a handful of people understanding the question sufficiently to reach beyond it. Some call these the 'Enlightened' - Rumi, Hallaj, Rabia Al Adawia to name a few. Their exploration and teaching of the 'truth' recognises an energy and consciousness from within and that reaches beyond the limits of a two dimensional perception of life.
It is in consequence of the writings left by these sages that the idea of this exhibition came together. Using symbols and visual metaphors the works by Al Said and Awwad explore some of the journey led by the Hoopoe bird in the poem lending a painterly insight to these astounding yet timeless writings and teachings.
Conversation
Nehad Azzawi
13 March to 5 April 21019
Opening 13 March at 6pm
The title of the exhibition describes Nihad Azzawi's concept as well as his methodology, using both printmaking and sculpture to find connections between form and content. Conversations happen at different levels - between mediums, symbols and subjects; between positive and negative space; between 2 dimensions and 3 dimensions.
The dramatic etching prints are large, monochromatic and bold. The circular shape is present, along with calligraphy and human forms, creating a dialogue between the elements used. Azzawi's sculptures are delicate in comparison but continue the theme where the human body creates a flow as well as conflict in shapes and interactions of space. To combine the two methods of representing a conversation creates it's own discourse.
CONVERSTION is an exhibition where the viewer can engage on different levels to consider how thoughts, form and materials are connected.
“Hikāyāt (stories)”
Tariq Dajani
13 April - 11 May 2019
As part of the 8th Image Festival Amman, Jacaranda Images welcomes the return of Tariq Dajani for his 5th solo exhibition at the gallery.
The exhibition consists of a series of rich hand-crafted photogravure prints combined with Arabic writings by poets Mahmoud Darwish and Samih al-Qasim, and mystics Rumi and Gibran, where the poetry adds an evocative dimension to the image.
Dajani uses old family photographs and other material to create poetic stories and ideas that reflect his personal feelings and thoughts, and his constant search for spiritual and earthly identity. The work is dark and evocative, hinting of separation, pain and loss. At the same time, the depth of human emotion displayed in the pictures provides future hope and optimism.
This will be the first exhibition of a series. All photogravure prints are limited to an edition of 3 copies only, and will be available for purchase.
A SENSE OF PLACE
Australian Aboriginal Art with Works from the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts Collection
8 to 30 July 2019
At the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts
Jacaranda Images is proud to present
A SENSE OF PLACE
Australian Aboriginal Art with Works from the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts Collection.
The Aboriginal works have been selected along the broad themes recurrent in Aboriginal art – places, ceremonies, food, animals, natural elements and bush medicine. The works often show the physical interpretation of the land and more importantly, the metaphysical maps that sit over it. This is providing knowledge to those who are initiated and for future generations to take responsibility for their land and ceremonies. The seemingly abstract works, modern in design and colour, are in fact multilayered representations of a story. Working with Japinka Gallery in Perth Australia and the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, this joint exhibition shows Australian and Jordanian works that addressing the sense of place, in terms of colors, lines and touches. Thus, the joint art exhibition shows that art knows no borders and that it is the permanent means of bringing peoples and nations closer together.
This exhibition marks the beginning of NAIDOC Week 2019 (National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee). The theme of this year’s NAIDOC Week is “Voice, Treaty, Truth,” and our exhibition celebrates the history, culture and achievements of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

BEYOND COLOUR
Fadi Haddadin
11 to 30 September 21019
Fadi Haddadin is from today's new generation of modern Jordanian Artists. From the fourth generation, with the modernists of previous generations, he contributes to moving the artistic movement in Jordan from objective academic styles, towards true contemporary work of thought and abstraction with his boldness.
Haddadin’s style expresses emotions to the extreme, dissolving the differences between the lines and colors. The form of expression identifies the human feelings and emotions through the gestures of colors. There is nothing shy about Haddadin’s work but there are complex subtleties with the layers and forms that are revealed with engaged observation.
Ammar Khammash says of Haddadin’s work:
“Haddadin hangs free shapes of color in mid space. Each of us look at these paintings and builds up a different space and order, according to some deep primordial visual perception process, possibly from our evolutionary past and survival strategies. These works represent a generative approach to art, where the artist gives works that are tools for us to build up our own results, in our deep visual and awareness conation. Fadi Haddadin stirs some visual/mental instincts we didn’t know that we had.”
The artist himself says of this work
“Imagination, emotion, feelings, energy forms, circles, lines and voids, always a white color full of endless possibilities, from here the remote thing starts appearing from the inside, it starts to appear by taking over a color space to impose itself on the white, followed by another to become an incomplete form, when its complete and the shapes begin to appear perhaps its people, faces..... Then quickly fades away, as the color movement continues within the work until the colour controls the shape and imposes its dominance by canceling all elements of the image, and begins to appear as colours, curves, blocks, shapes, lines and layers of colours.”
TISHREEN
Mo Rusan
Tishreen marks the season of harvest. A time when women in brightly embroidered dresses gather to pick the olive trees, a time when the land rewards its keepers.
This exhibition is a celebration of our ancestral connection to the land. It is a celebration of our traditional embroidered “Toub” (dress), adorned with stitches which themselves are a reflection of the land, its vegetation, birds and animals. It is a reconstruction of tradition, a contemporary take on our visual identity...and a salute to the land and its people.
The exhibition features hand shaped & hammered metals (aluminum, brass and tin) as well as mixed work on paper.
5 to 29 October 2019
YASER DWEIK
50 YEARS OF GRAPHICS
5 to 30 November 2019
Opening 5th of November at 6PM
This exhibition showing 50 Years of Yaser Dweik’s extraordinary original prints and works on paper cover traditional imagery through to contemporary calligraphy. It’s a lifetime of work from one of Jordan’s pioneer artists.
Jordanian artist Yasser Dweik was born in Palestine in 1940. He received his formal arts education at the Fine Art Academy in Baghdad in 1968, following this with printmaking at Brighton Polytechnic in the UK in 1972.
Returning to Jordan in the 1970s, Yasser, along with his contemporaries and great friends Mahmoud Taha, Nasr Abdel Aziz, Aziz Ammoura, Keram Al Nimri and Abdel Raouf Shamoun developed their various areas of expertise, crossing over disciplines and often collaborating together on works.
They were amongst the first Jordanian artists to have studied abroad and all returned to be involved in education of the arts and advance their own practices. Yaser has been a dedicated teacher and mentor to students since this time.
The subjects covered in Dweik’s prints encompass matters close to his heart. The elegant and delicate prints of birds and animals completed in the 1970s through to his more recent landscapes show the peaceful and hopeful side of Dweik.
Of course, this had been confronted with the despair and realities of the occupation of his homeland, the places of his heritage and the suffering of his Palestinian people. This work reveals the devastation of the physical environment as well as the pain and despair of the emotional state of the people.
Despite majoring in painting, his printmaking skills evolved to introduce various technical methods and styles to his contemporary work often using several techniques in the one print. The results show deft layers of colour, texture and patterns to tell the story.
TAMER Al AHMAR
Do You Still Remember!
7 to 31 December
Opening 7th of December at 6PM
Join us on a nostalgic, dazzling journey from the golden age of the Arabic cinema & music with artworks by the Jordanian artist Tamer Al Ahmar. Lessa Faker( do you still remember!) exhibition showcases his stunning collection of digital work which reimagines cultural icons in a modern way.
Iconic figures from Abdel Halim Hafez and Umm Kulthum to Frida Kahlo and Amy Winehouse are illustrated in unique ways that bring these stars into the modern age.