“Orient Gallery is not only a show space, but a home filled with friends who passionately love, welcome and support real creativity and the defiant and daring ideas of true contemporary works of art.” Ali Amr

Jordanian artist Ali Amr, who was born in Ukraine in 1976, is one of the few artists who demonstrates the manifestations of lines in a basic sense in his works. He studied the basics of drawing and painting in the Art Institute in Amman while simultaneously working towards a degree in accounting from Al-Ahliyya Amman University. He then enrolled in the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kiev, Ukraine, and set off on his journey of becoming a professional student of art, which he continued by also receiving a bachelor’s degree in art from the University of Jordan in 2006. Since 1999, Amr has participated in numerous local and international exhibitions and received critical acclaim, winning first place in the Jamal Badran Award for Plastic Arts in 2014 as well as placing first in the 2004 Fourth Youth Contest of Creativity. He has a firm grasp of the human form and its representation, something that is apparent in his work, both in the forms he creates as well as the contrast of light and dark that he uses to make them. He has embraced a more abstract, expressionist style, letting go of any learned conventions, blending his figures until they become one with the background. Amr utilizes strong, contrasting and complementing colors as well as large brush-strokes to make his pieces come alive. His most recent work has shifted focus to the face, embodying a more physiological concept of a person, their feelings and lifestyle.

“I believe we should rather be honest to ourselves and our paintings, than to always search for a style.” Ali Amr