Syrian artist depicts Trump, Obama, Putin and other world leaders as refugees

A Syrian refugee artist is breaking the internet with his new paintings for re-imagining the likes of US President Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and 8 other world leaders as refugees in a series of paintings titled 'The Vulnerability Series' which are currently on display in Dubai. 

Abdalla Al Omari a Syrian artist who has refugee status in Belgium showing world leaders as displaced or disenfranchised people spent 19 months creating a series of paintings of world leaders, in his Brussels studio with an aim to picture them outside their positions of power.

Omari, says his own experience with displacement prompted him to create The Vulnerability Series.

"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.

In the series, Trump is portrayed as a bedraggled and an exhausted refugee holding a young sleeping child; his belongings and a sleeping mat on his back, a photo of his family clutched in his right hand.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is portrayed as a beggar and homless, as well as former British Prime Minister David Cameron and former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while Assad appears partially submerged in water with only a paper boat to come to his aid. 

 

In another painting entitled The Queue, he depicted the likes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and former US President Barack Obama, in a seemingly endless line waiting for food.

"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.

He said his intention was not to disrespect world leaders, but to "give them back their humanity".

"Somehow my aim shifted from an expression of anger that I had...to a more vivid desire to disarm my figures, to picture them outside their positions of power."