An internationally recognised figure, Marwan Kassab Bachi, also referred to simply as Marwan, is known for the rawness of the subjective experiences expressed in his work. Marwan’s painting and printmaking explore the human condition through psychological explorations of the standing figure and the face or head often as self-portraiture. He studied Arabic Literature at Damascus University and attended the Hochschule für Bildende Künste after moving to Berlin in the late 1950s where he felt very much an outsider in postwar Europe. In the 1970s, Marwan embarked on some of the most fruitful investigations of his career. He began to repetitively explore the human head as a landscape upon which to excavate and express the complexities of the soul. Marwan’s work has been featured internationally at venues including London’s Tate Modern and the British Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Serralves Museum in Portugal, which in 2014 featured a major retrospective of his work curated by Catherine David.