Paintings that hang in four directions

Most paintings have a top and a bottom. Many of Yazan Orabi’s do not. He paints a single canvas so that it can be hung in four directions, and each turn reveals a different composition: figures that were hidden come forward, a crowd becomes a face, a landscape becomes a body.

One painting, four works

For a collector this means four paintings in one. The work can be rotated with the seasons, with a move, or simply with a change of mood — and it keeps surprising the people who live with it. Each catalogue page shows all four hangings, and the artist can advise on the orientation for a particular wall.

Why he paints this way

Orabi paints people not as they appear but as they are beneath what they choose to show. Turning the canvas is the same idea made physical: look again, from another side, and something else is there. All works are original acrylic on canvas, signed by the artist.