ABDALLA AL OMARI

 The Vulnerability Series
By Abdalla Al Omari

The Vulnerability Series is a subversive and emotionally charged body of work that confronts the architecture of power through an unexpected lens: vulnerability. In this acclaimed series, Abdalla Al Omari reimagines the world’s most powerful leaders—not in their usual roles as decision-makers and symbols of control, but as refugees, the displaced, and the forgotten.

By reversing traditional propaganda—where the powerful are idealized and elevated—Al Omari constructs a kind of reverse propaganda, in which those who command armies or economies are stripped of their grandeur and placed within the context of the very crises they often influence. The result is not caricature, but confrontation: an unsettling invitation to see these figures not as icons, but as human beings, capable of suffering and stripped of agency.

Rooted in Al Omari’s own experiences as a Syrian exile, the series subverts expectations and media narratives, unmasking the emotional distance between political rhetoric and lived human consequence. It forces a reversal of empathy, collapsing the safe distance between viewer and subject, and upending the roles of hero, villain, and victim.

In The Vulnerability Series, the act of painting becomes an act of quiet resistance—a challenge to the spectacle of power and a reclamation of emotional truth. Through disarmingly intimate portraits, Al Omari proposes that vulnerability is not weakness, but the most radical form of connection we have left.

Since its release, The Vulnerability Series set off a wave of international media attention, reverberating across continents and sparking urgent conversations about power, empathy, and representation. From BBC, CNN, and Al Jazeera to platforms in India, China, Europe, and the Middle East, the series captured the imagination of audiences worldwide. This surge of coverage not only amplified Abdalla Al Omari’s message but also positioned the work as a global touchpoint in the dialogue between art and politics. The response revealed a shared human curiosity—and discomfort—around the fragility of those who seem untouchable.