Mark Hachem Gallery-Beirut is delighted to invite you to “Sins, Virtues & Colors”, a long awaited solo exhibition by the Lebanese artist Ghazi Baker, featuring an eclectic body of works that touches on various overlapping and recurring themes inspired by contemporary life, popular culture and media.

As a manifestation of his state of being, Baker creates paintings that emphasize aesthetics through personal statements, a genuine and real connection into his thinking, process and influences. His art often engages with reality through an overwhelmingly mediated face. Allegory, humor and irony take center stage in his provocative and appealing artworks.

Ghazi Baker speaks to both 'high' and 'popular' culture, addressing a large audience. Whether personal or impersonal, humorous or cool, critical or affirmatively empowering, his works tackle issues that matter in today's world. Through sarcasm, provocation and seduction, he muses about the state of the human condition, engaging in diverse dialogues, ranging from consumerism, religion, drugs, sexism and the promulgation of female desire. Despite their ancient origin, sins continue to influence contemporary life, both individually and collectively, sparking discourse on the nature of sin and conversely, virtue and goodness. As such, prompting a visit to the human mind and condition, in a global community where sin is prevalent.

Baker's paintings often refer to mass or classical cultures. Not meaning to draw any conclusions or impose any points of view, but rather to uncover global flaws and contradictions that are part of human nature or maybe human curse. Using written or drawn symbols and idioms, he paints a world where light-heartedness rules and where rules are undermined.

His work is a clear response to his surrounding environment. Using every day experiences as a starting point, he captures and frames instances that could have otherwise been missed. Those moments as manifested on his canvases expose human drama, irony and ridiculousness that punctuate our existence. With his conceptual approach, he seduces the viewer into a world oscillating between the fragile equilibrium of the real world and the world of fantasy.

Baker approaches a wide scale of subjects in a multi-layered way. Deconstructing his own accomplishments, sometimes years after he completes them, he paints on them again as if they were new canvases. He re-layers, strips and re-exposes hidden layers along unadulterated black lines involving the viewer, while investigating the process of expectations.

In certain instances, Baker's art radiate a cold and latent violence, displaying a disconcerting beauty.

In other instances, colors and lines convey mixed emotions creating uncertainty and bewilderment. The inherent visual seductiveness and the conciseness of his lines add to the complexity in the interpretation of the manifold layers embedded in his canvases elevating the viewer’s perception to a higher dimension. In both conception and content, the most important feature in the artist's work is his celebration of today's world, with its complexity and contradiction, its sins and virtues, in colors.