GEORGE MAKHOUL COLLECTION

Born in 1966 in Beirut, Lebanon, of Syrian descent, Georges Makhoul is the CEO of Constellation Holdings, a Dubai-based private investment firm.

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He is a patron of Art Dubai and the collection, he and his wife have built over the past 20 years, around 350 artworks, is maintained at his home in Dubai.

They started to collect art seriously while living in Tokyo, Japan in 1996 and gradually transitioned into collecting Middle Eastern modern art in1998.

One of their first purchases from this genre was by the Syrian artist Fateh Moudarres entitled “Peasant Women from Aleppo” .Makhoul notes, that by presenting the ordinary Syrian peasant, “Some one who either can not speak their mind or can not see what is going on around them, is a silent but strong message that reflects the state of the ordinary Syrian,” he says.

Artworks from Moudarres and Louay Kayyali, another eminent Syrian artist, are displayed throughout Makhoul’s home, Moudarres and Kayyali often depict the somber social milieu of Syria’s past and still prevalent, throughout the nation today.

What pervades throughout the collection is that each work is a reflection of his family’s values and culture.

Other artworks, which address religion from Christianity to Islam, prevail throughout.

Of note, is Omar El Nagdi’s Untitled work which depicts the Islamic rituals of pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi

Arabia. “Even if we are not Muslim, it is a part of our culture,” he says.

Being a patron, he has cultivated a selection of pop art in the past few years and has also introduced artists who have recently risen on the scene who address themes of exodus and refugees.

Among their favorites are 2 paintings :

Elias Zayat’s Composition that is displayed alongside Omar “Malva” Hamdi’s Purgatory . It is Purgatory that particularly resonates with him.

“We are not collecting as investors. We are collecting because we want to live with our art “ he says.