The visual language of the Syrian-German painter Bahram Hajou is haunting and unmistakable. Couples take centre stage in his figurative compositions. Postures, gestures and positions bear witness to the inability to speak to each other, to trust and to love. One person gives the other the cold shoulder, bows down, crushed or overwhelmed, feels guilt or shame, sinks into loneliness and melancholy. The protagonists are shown naked, vulnerable and defenceless. The truth expressed in these constellations comes across unadorned and unvarnished. People fail because of their inadequacies, their lust for power and their egotism. Bahram Hajou is a master of overpainting. He works with acrylic colours and mixed media. Colour is impulsively applied to the rough, untreated canvas. The pictorial statement is created in dialogue with the colour surfaces. The paintings are built up in layers. They are the result of a process.
