Lebanese artist, Selim Mawad, created this satirical collection as a thought provoking and critical social commentary of Lebanese politics and its people. The series is painted on rusted metal to convey “Rusted Truths”. Mawad employs satirical, provocative, and uncomfortable truths to illustrate hypocritical realities. In this collection, both the tropes and the shared sufferings of Lebanese society become the protagonists of irreverent visual representations, infused with an acerbic condemnation of the country’s corruption.

The background for each piece gives the impression of a dystopian setting that is in a continuous state of deterioration. The scar from the August 4th Beirut explosion is repeated in three pieces (Wheat, Cheers, Sun Tanning). The irreverence is most poignant when the artist refers to the explosion as “fireworks” (one of the ingredients which led to the catastrophe, as they were stored in the port hangar), which is a clear condemnation of the irresponsibility and corruption in the handling of infrastructure.

Turquoise, Cache Cache and Pizza revolve around the theme of revolution. The first two do so from the point of view of the poor and hungry. The lack of medicine is a problem which left many in dire health conditions. In Cache Cache, the characters are fishing for medicine and miserably obtain some tablets. In Turquoise, the man wears a tank top listing four blood types while holding up the carcass of a fish, his measly meal, which expresses his hunger and desperation. Pizza uses satire to show and mock the indecisiveness of a Lebanese man who does not know whether to protest (“Revolution”), leave the country (“Visa”), or, simply, eat (“Pizza”), placing the three as equally potential choices.

The theme of emigration is so thorny in Lebanon, that Mawad dedicates an entire art piece to it, One Way Ticket. Here, a freshly graduated student holds a visa application letter as a symbol of the brain drain Lebanon is suffering from. Last, but not least, the theme of decadence and inadequacy emerges sardonically in Botox, where Mawad comments on the societal addiction to beauty procedures in the country, by suggesting its consumption is so frequent, it appears to be subsidized.

signed and dated on reverse 2021 in Arabic and signed in English front bottom left