Houssam Ballan’s Alternative highlights a large body of work that he produced during a year of significant transition, at a time when he left his home in Damascus to resettle in Beirut. In Lebanon, Ballan experienced a distinct symptom of exile, the feelings of detachment and disorientation that colors displacement, as his life was essentially severed from his native Syria. In this new city, a place where waves of mass exodus and influxes of migration have alternated over the last fifty years, Ballan quickly identified the emotional burden that comes with this experience. While these recent artworks are not outwardly autobiographical, as the artist intentionally limits recognizable symbols that reflect aspects of his life, they are deeply in tune with the experiences of Beirut’s diverse communities.
Among the surreal scenes of these paintings, the viewer finds children playing in historic city quarters or safely indoors in a room that seems saturated with a psychological heaviness. Within these paintings, Ballan builds narratives that have multiple reference points, thus making illegible any sense of singularity or linear perceptions of time, the objective being that time and place collapse into each other, making details obsolete.
In A Game of Hide n’ Seek (2022), for example, several figures (who appear to be children) are shown crouching in a shipping container just beyond the arched doorway of a traditional home. The viewer notes that the building is historic based on its architectural attributes, yet with little embellishment other than checkerboard floor tiles, it is difficult to discern the scene’s context. Outside the house, another figure is shown walking barefoot on a pair of stilts, the ends of which are attached to combat boots. These same objects appear in a painting that hangs just above the children’s hiding place. This type of imagery has been a symbol condemning the militarization of society since the 20th century’s interwar period, which was rampant with uncertainty and tumult. The black objects immediately grab the viewer’s attention, clueing them into the anxiety that punctuates a safely guarded world. According to the artist, the boots also can be read as a stand-in for an adult male figure, namely the absence of a father, a common experience for children under siege. The alternative reality that Ballan depicts is not necessarily detached from everyday life, on the contrary it is tied to a deep capacity for empathy. From within the depths of his experiences, Ballan locates the dreamscapes of the subconscious.