The conceptual theme of “Dirty Laundry” draws from the mundane visual experience of clothes hung on clotheslines. However, the intended artistic effect produced by Azzam in his use of materials, color and technique far surpasses the ordinary “hang for drying” drill.

“Dirty Laundry” is in essence an artistic evolution of the “The Laundry Series” that he began with a painting containing just three lines of black rope stretched across a canvas.

He revealed that the inspiration for the series was the sight of his daughter arranging pins on a clothesline at home.

“Dirty Laundry” could well be an implied artistic metaphor about events that have occurred in the past, scandals and secrets that each contains and reveals. It is a collective of past and present memories that remain and maintain our condition, influence our reflections and define our moments.

“When you open your room windows and see laundry, it reminds you of the memories of the city in the background, making you think of what may have happened. Those memories are our life,” he says.

Tiny multicolored cloth rags hung upon stretched ropes on the canvas to the arrival of larger mono-colored rags dyed in red, metallic black and silver direct the entire artistic process and aesthetics in this series.

The use of metallic colors in black and silver in some of the installations is a reference to the luster of the industrial environment and may perhaps hint at the covetousness and mad-run toward the glitter of “metal” as defined by the collective objective of the past century and today.

Each installation in the series is a stepping promotion from the previous in terms of color, technique, arrival and departure of applied thoughts and emotions. In the slow transition of the empty, stark, mono- colored canvases emerges details and a form of the urban cityscape only to be lost again into the ash colored volcanic environs of Sweida in his hometown of Damascus.

This series also reveals his techniques in abstract expressionism, visible with the progression of each piece, implying a sense of “emptiness” where the definition of all form is lost.

“I think here no memories exist. It’s just gone,” he says.

Perhaps the grand finale of the “Dirty Laundry” series is the installation of a greeting “washing-machine” pasted with newspaper cutouts of the recent political upheaval in Syria — a reminder of those occurrences and events that maintains its presence in the recesses of memory of the artist.

Three of the installations have been mounted on burned canvases — a subtle, yet heavy indication toward the offense that was launched upon civilians in Syria on account of the persistent political expulsion of President Assad from seat of power.

“For me, this event changed my life; something happened to all of us. This work is about what happened in Syria and was inspired by the revolution that happened there. It talks about the guns and fire and tanks that we saw everyday, everywhere,” said Azzam.

Azzam reveals that he is not entirely certain how the current political events have influenced “Dirty Laundry,” but that it has certainly affected his normal life. He also wishes to explore, in his future work, the emotional impact the revolution has caused among the masses and its implications on those people who have been affected most by the Arab spring.

“I’m thinking all the time, ‘what happened?’” he said.

For the time being, some dirty laundry needs to go for a spin…