Omar Al-Zo'bi

Blouzaat: urban art's wearable expressions

a view into the new urban art revolution in Jordan

It's always a disappointment to us art appreciators and artists when we go into stores to buy a t-shirt and find these extremely tacky, commercial, and generic t-shirt designs as well as being overpriced. Therefore, many gone towards purchasing ones online through direct stores or bidding websites and so on, t-shirts done independently by art makers.

collage - - wooden boards & artworks by the Blouzaat team

This case is about to end, as a new store in Amman, the Jordanian capital is opening soon. Behind the store are 4 art moguls. Ahmad Sabbagh & Mohammad Assaf from Jordan, and Michael & Falk from Germany. The store came after a project the two German artists were working on, under the working title of "Found In Translation" - met the Jordanian artists and found common interests in Urban art and decided to put the first step into raising the urban art scene in Jordan.

From animals that are anthropomorphous, funny looking and soda-loving to humans that don't quite comply to the usual beauty standards. All these you find them in the artworks and t-shirts done by the Blouzaat team. Arabic type is a vital and main element in creation of most of the t-shirt designs, and it's found as heavily used which adds character and uniqueness to the t-shirts with them being able to merge basic western urban art techniques and slapping on taglines from Arabic ads that date back to the 80's.