Born in Beirut in 1973, Shawki Youssef received his BFA at the Lebanese University of Beirut in 1994, before going on to complete his MSc at St. Joseph’s University in 2007. Attempting to create an uncensored stream from the unconscious to the canvas itself, Shawki Youssef tackles the physical performance of painting with an impulsiveness that is purposely never preconceived. Youssef’s anonymous bodies act as an illustration of the collective, of a society that has been affected by war, poverty and disease, and who the artist leaves — in a murderous mess — to put its individual pieces back together.