Ramzi Mallat (b.1996) is a Lebanese multidisciplinary artist based between Beirut and London, whose contemporary, conceptual practice delves into socio-political critique, whilst exploring the intertwined themes of heritage, memory and displacement. His works stand as powerful embodiments of resistance, surfacing buried narratives and challenging the realities of expulsion and erasure.
As Mallat explains, “I always gravitate towards cultural tropes as the starting point of my practice. It seems as though there are unresolved tensions embedded within them that persist throughout generations, which I have to unravel and decode to make sense of the present.” He positions his body of work at a crossroads between the historical and the contemporary, drawing a thread between the multifaceted, layered present and the storied lineage of Levantine culture.
The artist’s profound magnetism towards fragility and a multidisciplinary approach bridge his artistic career and his own lived experience. He is drawn to the possibilities of varied artistic forms, from moving image to glass and cast materials, navigating a physical language and visually articulating his native region’s political fragility. Mallat’s work counteracts a “perpetual amnesia” from a socio-political perspective – laying bare the uncomfortable truth that human compassion often wanes in the absence of unfamiliar yet universal hardship.
Martyrial Denouncement and Personal Autonomy
“There is a richness that is culturally so diverse that I want to bring to the fore, which audiences outside the region are not always aware of. My mission is to push the boundaries of what contemporary art can be from a Levantine perspective – to reactivate heritage so it becomes revolutionary in conceiving the future,” Mallat states in an interview with the Arab British Centre. His current and formative works aim to embed a lasting awareness into the fabric of collective memory through delicate materials, marking perils and injustice across generational conflict.
Mallat’s Victoria & Albert Museum installation, Not Your Martyr (2025), stands as a powerful example. As an ode to the victims of the Beirut port blast of 2020, the work’s title is a rejection of the ritualistic impulse – deeply ingrained in SWANA cultures – of turning victims into martyrs, a practice that risks silencing their humanity beneath the weight of symbolic sacrifice, and numbing public outrage at the injustice of their loss. The installation is composed of curated, colourful glasswork crafted to resemble traditional ma’amoul, a pastry symbolic of unity celebrated during Easter and Eid. Its vitreous forms refract light, lending a feeling of hope and a tender gesture toward the future. Mallat describes this work as a “counter-monument”, relating to its core theme of fragility, quietly honouring difficult commemorations shared by a suffering nation.
This colourful theme is also echoed in the series Constellations of Protection (2023-ongoing), presented at Aporia, the artist’s previous solo exhibition at Project LOOP London in 2025. The series comprises a colourful palette of tactile bronze forms in deliberate contrast with the visual culture of ancient Levantine and imperial artefacts.The exhibition cultivates an aesthetics of volatility through a visual and conceptual lens that mirrors the precarity of contemporary life. This entropy unravels through the Constellations of Protection series, modelled on the Syrian Eye Temple Complex at Tell Brak, and brings votive logic into the current context. The earthen, archaic-like forms contend both protection and unease – viscerally grounding between sacrifice and vulnerability.
This preoccupation with protection continues in Vista Visions VIII (2024). Here, Mallat turns to the evil eye through his multimedia approach, weaving together each medium to interrogate the act of looking. He examines how the gaze can shield, threaten, and expand on notions of apotropaic symbolism, invoking the renewal of urgency in an epoch defined by fragility, displacement, and uncertainty.
Atlas of An Entangled Gaze
In his most recently unveiled exhibition in London, Atlas of An Entangled Gaze (2026), as the inaugural centennial commission at the Arab Hall of Leighton House, Mallat breathes life into the cultural symbolism of the historic interior through a sweeping installation of luminous blue eyes. The piece reflects on legacy through the lens of Islamic craft and ancestral Levantine lore, as well as the architectural relic of the space itself.
In the installation, one can discern the elaborate chainmail-inspired technique employed by Mallat, which is rooted in historical Ottoman Islamic combat attire. The visual intricacy of the piece reflects the relentless brutality that spans both the relics of the past and living realities.
Mallat further captures longevity of heritage through the elaborate, rhythmically repeated ceramic Syriac evil eye charms meticulously situated across the formation of the composed piece.
“The evil eye is often dismissed as folklore, yet it speaks directly to pressing contemporary anxieties of visibility, protection and erasure. Through repetition and suspension, this work becomes an architecture of collective memory, a reminder that the act of looking is never neutral,” the artist explains. The installation itself carries something deeply poignant in the repetition of the evil eye motif across the work – the central presence of vivid blue hues set against the more subdued tones of the Islamic tilework brings a narrative of profound visual and conceptual contemplation to an already culturally embedded space, drawing back to Mallat’s central focus of heritage and conflict. The installation places questions of visibility and fragility at the very heart, whilst bounding an imprint on the perceiver.
Throughout his work, Mallat demonstrates a refined ability to transform colour and artefacts into bold statements, tapping into personal and collective memories through objects and symbols within the structure of Western artistic discourse, compelling the viewer to question and reframe the dominant stories that have shaped our own understanding and conventional narratives.
Ramzi Mallat holds a Master of Arts in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art (2021–2023) and a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from Lancaster University. Among his notable achievements, he is one of the youngest artists to have held a solo exhibition at the UNESCO Palace in Beirut. His work has also been featured in exhibitions at prominent venues, including the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum, Project Loop, P21 Gallery, and Marie Jose Gallery in London. Notably, the independent artist was recognised by Forbes Middle East, earning a feature on their 30 Under 30 list. Mallat’s latest installation, Atlas of An Entangled Gaze, will be on display at Leighton House until May 13th 2026, marking his first UK institutional commission in the Arab Hall.
