Dubai: An art exhibition in a Dubai gallery titled "The Vulnerability Series" shows world leaders as displaced or disenfranchised people, moving them away from the corridors of power that they normally occupy.
Syrian refugee artist Abdalla Al Omari's work, which took 19 months to make and was created in his Brussels studio, includes paintings US president Donald Trump, Russian president Vladimir Putin, Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, Kim Jong-un, former US president Barack Obama and other world leaders as the homeless and as refugees.
"Being a refugee is like having a new lump in your body that you had nothing to do with, and it will stay until the last day, so you better deal with it," Al Omari told CNN.
"My aim somehow shifted from an expression of anger to a more vivid desire of disarming these figures, (to) picture them outside their positions of power," Reuters quoted Omari as telling Al Jazeera.
Omari started painting in Damascus shortly after the start of the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011. He fled and was granted asylum in Belgium.
"People are sometimes too fond of their politicians. They cannot see them fall off their thrones. They cannot see them weak," Al Omari told CNN.
Gallery visitor Sami Azraq said the portraits were a unique take on the refugee crisis.
"I do think it's an interesting way or it's a nicer way to look at the problem rather than our usual news or social media or other outlets," he said.
(With inputs from agencies)
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