Elias Izoli’s circus is not a place of laughter or lighthearted wonder. It is a theatre of survival—where colour clashes with sorrow, and every performance feels like a balancing act between truth and endurance.
At Ayyam Gallery’s recent exhibition Inside Out ’25, the Syrian artist transforms the familiar symbols of the circus into an unsettling metaphor for life under Bashar Al Assad’s regime. His paintings pulse with bold hues—reds, yellows, and blues that seem to echo the vibrancy of carnival tents—yet the emotion beneath them is unmistakably heavy.
The Circus Without Joy
In Izoli’s world, performers are not entertainers—they are survivors.
The tightrope walkers move forward with vacant eyes, their gazes fixed on unseen destinations. Trapeze artists soar through monumental heights, not in exhilaration but in quiet yearning for escape. Even the clowns, those eternal emblems of joy, appear weary as they face their mirrors, smearing on paint over eyes dulled by repetition.
Each figure seems trapped in their routine, mirroring the drudgery of daily life in a nation bound by censorship, surveillance, and silent endurance.
“You’d wake up in the morning, pass through checkpoints and barriers, and say nothing,” Izoli recalls. “It felt like you were in a circus—walking a tightrope and trying to keep your balance.”
This imagery—of walking a fine line between expression and suppression—forms the emotional core of Inside Out ’25.
Balancing Truth and Survival
For Izoli, the circus is not merely a metaphor—it is lived experience. Under Assad’s rule, every Syrian, he says, has had to perform this balancing act.
“Every Syrian, even those in the diaspora, know this feeling,” he explains. “You hold the truth inside, even if you can’t say it aloud. That becomes your way of surviving.”
In his paintings, the human form carries literal and emotional weight. The figures are solid, grounded, and heavy—burdened by invisible loads of fear and longing. Yet despite their exhaustion, they continue to perform.
“The weight I give them,” Izoli says, “is their worry and dread. Still, they must stay balanced—to survive, not for others, but for themselves.”
The Barrier Between Stage and Spectator
The title Inside Out ’25 captures the push and pull of Izoli’s artistic gaze—between interior struggle and outward presentation. His collage technique enhances this duality, layering paper to create translucent, textured surfaces. The result feels like a veil, a soft barrier separating viewer from subject—as though we, the audience, are peering into a circus ring we can never quite enter.
Each painting in the series is Untitled, a deliberate choice that invites endless interpretations.
“Those inside the circus are looking out, and those outside are looking in,” Izoli says. “You can read a million meanings in their expressions—they’re the condemned performers, repeating the same act every day with the same restrained energy.”
A Circus That Reflects the Region
Though deeply personal and tied to Syrian life, Izoli’s circus also resonates with wider regional realities. One striking image—a juggler in a black suit—serves as a reflection on the ongoing tragedy in Gaza.
“Despite all the pain in her body,” he says softly, “she continues to juggle.”
In this way, the circus becomes a global symbol: of persistence amidst pain, of performing even when the stage collapses.
Colour as Defiance
For all its heaviness, Inside Out ’25 is not devoid of beauty. Izoli’s use of colour is deliberate—an act of resistance in itself.
“It’s a kind of love,” he explains. “It doesn’t matter if the subject is happy or sad. I use colour like a child with paints, wanting to throw them all onto the canvas.”
The hues may dazzle, but they don’t disguise the sorrow beneath. Instead, they speak to the paradox of life in Syria—a place where even suffering demands vibrancy to be seen.
The Curtain Stays Up
Izoli describes Inside Out ’25 as just the beginning of a larger exploration.
“This is my first foray,” he says. “I’ve only drawn the curtain. I want to keep discovering what I can do with the circus—the tools, the characters, even the animals.”
His next works will likely continue this dialogue between colour and constraint, performance and pain—offering audiences a mirror not just to Syria’s story, but to the human condition itself.
A Stage for Resilience
Through Inside Out ’25, Elias Izoli reminds us that even within oppression, there is art—and even within despair, there is performance. His circus may be somber, but it is alive with defiance.
Each canvas tells the same story in a different tone: the courage to keep walking the tightrope, no matter how shaky the line or how heavy the air inside the tent.
In the end, Izoli’s circus isn’t a spectacle for amusement. It’s a testament to endurance—a vivid, haunting act of survival under the spotlight of history.
