Having left Latakia in 2000, Kazem Khalil made the agony of the Syrian diaspora his subject, recognized for his signature medium is the coffee-grounds wash. The work illustrates two bands of figures one above the other. Along the top, a crowd of clothed figures gathers beneath an arch, while the below is a row of pale, unclothed figures painted frontally, exposed and close-packed. The brown of the coffee gives the whole a worn look, as though the scene had surfaced from an old photograph or a dream of a place left behind.