_{Sfeir-Semler Gallery Hamburg, 2018}

Youssef Abdelké (b. 1951, Qamischli, Syria) lives and works in Damascus, Syria. He studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus and graduated in 1976 with a project on Black September - portraying the massacres of Palestinians in Jordan in September 1970 - that revealed a militant artist who, ever since, relentlessly fights for freedom and denounces violence.

Known for his sympathies, and for his political activism, Abdelké was arrested for nearly two years in 1978, and then moved to Paris and graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux- Arts in 1986 and from the Sorbonne University as a doctoral student in Fine Arts in 1989. Unable to return home, he lived and worked in exile in Paris for twenty-four years. In 2005, he decided to travel back to Damascus, and managed to safely get through border security; but in 2010 his passport was confiscated, and he was arrested again for five weeks in 2013.

Youssef Abdelké’s universe is black, and, despite the stillness of his drawings, overflowing with rage at injustice and abuse of power. His personal approach to perspective and his exploration of lines through drawing and etching reveals a multi-layered practice, that highlights the fragility of Men and unexpectedly celebrates human life.