Ayman Yossri Daydban
Untitled 1-8 from the Flower Series, 2016
8 film posters on tissue Boxes (each)
Ayman Yossri Daydban
AlSharaf (Honor) from the My Father Over The Tree series, 2015
Silicon, soil on vintage posters
113 x 83 cm (44 7/16 x 32 5/8 in.)
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Ayman Yossri Daydban
Single from the My Father Over The Tree series, 2015
Silicon, soil on vintage posters
113 x 83 cm
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Ayman Yossri Daydban
Ya Laytany La Amluk fee Hathihi Al Dunya shyaan wa leya om (I wish I had nothing in this world,but had a mother), 2015
Silicon, soil on vintage posters
113 x 83 cm
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Ayman Yossri Daydban
AlOntha (The Female) , 2015
Silicon, soil on vintage posters
113 x 83 cm (44 7/16 x 32 5/8 in.)
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Ayman Yossri Daydban
Al Qablah Al Oola - The First Kiss, 2014
Arabic comic on acid free paper
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Ayman Yossri Daydban
The First & Last Prayer, 2014
Prayer rug, soil on acid free paper
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Ayman Yossri Daydban
Red Flag, 2014
Industrial car paint on hessian onion bag
128 x 145 cm (50 3/8 x 57 1/16 in.)
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Ayman Yossri Daydban
White Buffalo, 2014
25 tissue boxes
182.5 x 68 x 8 cm (71 13/16 x 26 3/4 x 3 1/8 in.)
From the Maharem series
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Ayman Yossri Daydban
Abyssinia, 2012
Metallic lambda print mounted on dibond
210 x 146 cm (82 5/8 x 57 1/2 in.)
From the sub-series Dialogues of Subtitles series, Variation 2
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The series Maharem originated from the tissue box which middle to lower income families traditionally exhibit in their sitting room for their guests’ convenience. These boxes are usually lavishly decorated with velvet and kitsch gold rims and are often considered decorative masterpieces, a source of pride to the lady of the house. The artist physically manipulates the tissue box, ripping it bare of the comfort of the velvet coating. He then prints movie imagery onto the rough wood, overlaying the scenes and portraits with the direct language of popular sayings, proverbs and riddles.
Cinemas have been illegal in Saudi since 1980s, when conservative clerics deemed them a corrupt influence.
Ayman Yossri Daydban takes old Egyptian film posters and re-enacts systems of censorship used by the public in Saudi in the 70s, when mud was used to cover areas of posters deemed unacceptable. The work questions the line between censorship and abolition whilst being reminiscent of language once accessible to the general public and media that shaped the artist’s own childhood, contributed to his emotional development and creative practice.
From the My Father Over The Tree series
Cinemas have been illegal in Saudi since 1980s, when conservative clerics deemed them a corrupt influence.
Ayman Yossri Daydban takes old Egyptian film posters and re-enacts systems of censorship used by the public in Saudi in the 70s, when mud was used to cover areas of posters deemed unacceptable. The work questions the line between censorship and abolition whilst being reminiscent of language once accessible to the general public and media that shaped the artist’s own childhood, contributed to his emotional development and creative practice.
From the My Father Over The Tree series
From the Room series
I have never imagined that my first kiss would be a mere picture. However, there was nothing we could do, living in the eighties under what was known as the religious awakening; the one which shed darkness on all the outlets of a normal life in the name of religion. Here we are today suffering the results of this ill-fated awakening through an unprecedented religious extremism. Despite this context, we succeeded as teenagers at that time in bringing in and exchanging everything clandestinely and secretly and absolutely no one could prevent us from living! This first kiss was life even if it were transient.
From the Room series
I have never imagined that my first kiss would be a mere picture. However, there was nothing we could do, living in the eighties under what was known as the religious awakening; the one which shed darkness on all the outlets of a normal life in the name of religion. Here we are today suffering the results of this ill-fated awakening through an unprecedented religious extremism. Despite this context, we succeeded as teenagers at that time in bringing in and exchanging everything clandestinely and secretly and absolutely no one could prevent us from living! This first kiss was life even if it were transient.
Borders, flags and other symbols of belonging and identity continuously infuse Ayman Yossri’s oeuvre. For the last 10 years, the artist has been constructing and deconstructing the Palestinian flag, reflecting on a shifting understanding of identity and exile, in a process of constant redefinitions.
Ayman belongs nowhere. His Palestinian identity is fragmented and has lost its form and meaning. His flags are, at times, devoid of colours, reflective metal sheets shaped by the sheer force of his body, showing, in the various phases of unfolding, the effort of the human being to break free from the narrow stereotypes which are imposed on him. At other instances, these flags are pieces of paper and recycled objects, hessian bags painted red, all reflecting on a flag ‘empty’ of ideals, representing the politics of national identity in a globalized world.
The basic function for the Arabic language associated with a foreign language film shown on the screen... is translation. It works in the context of the film as a narration of the story and an explanation of the action that accompanies it ... and thus the meaning of the picture precedes that of the language and specifies it.
The language, when deducted from its cruel context and re-exported with the image of the new still captured photo, changes its function from confirming the meaning to producing it, by transforming itself to a unique source of new mental images with no past or function.
Athr presents GIve Me The Light, a solo exhibition by Ayman Yossri Daydban showcasing new and old works spanning over 30 years of the artist’s practice.
Along with earlier works that have never been exhibited before at the gallery, Ayman will also present White Noise, a live performance and the first of a new body of work titled, The State. White Noise is a sensory experience inviting the audience to walk on salt while moving through a space. The performance builds on the underlying concept running throughout the exhibition: an invitation by Ayman to discover a “state” whilst exploring the work exhibited in each space.
At the root of Ayman’s artistic endeavors is his search for a contemporary understanding of identity and belonging, redefining its conventional, social, cultural, geographic and political implications into an understanding of a relationship between man and his surrounding spaces. Ayman’s ability to transform and export an object from its intended function, enables him to study how familiar cultural visual stimuli – from movies, tissues boxes, to posters and Ihrams -- can be re-imagined to highlight underlying issues. He pulls apart and reconstructs the codes we use to define and categorize ourselves, questioning the concept of authoritative representation, and notions of ‘truth’. Give Me The Light continues this search; reinterpreting his bodies of work to collectively shed light on how knowledge and identity are nurtured, presented, rejected or shared between an increasingly complex and constantly shifting global community.
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