AMMAN — Walking into the latest exhibition at Gallery 14, “5 Distinctive Talents”, one is ushered into immersive worlds.

Ziad Ghazi’s art is a world of women, passion, loss, sadness, lust, exploitation and confusion.

The Iraqi artist’s works centre on women. He uses a woman’s figure to create mosaics of colours and forms.

Each woman in his artworks is a jigsaw puzzle that one cannot solve. The suggestive poses of every woman convey mixed emotions and conflicting images.

A woman could be at peace or rendered numb by exploitation; she could be asleep or dead, hurt or feigning weakness; and she could be needy or manipulative.

In some works, there are two women with expressions of animosity or harmony.

One quick look at Ghazi’s acrylic paintings is not enough. With each glance one grasps a new idea, a new image or a new meaning.

In Nada Atari’s wood cut works, the women are faceless. It is as if the idea they represent is what matters.

They are the embodiment of traditional values, with their familiar wardrobe, accessories and surroundings.

But Muhammad Abu Haltam’s works are all about faces.

In his oil paintings, the artist portrays a face with an expression that works with the dominant colour to reflect a certain mood.

The expressions vary from calm, to shameful, to distraught, to secretive.

The faces are sometimes accompanied by strange anatomy, such as an unusually large hand or strangely placed feet.

Abu Haltam’s works are intriguing and colourful.

But Kamal Al Zoubi, in his works of mixed media, ventures into the abstract world.

He blends layers of colour to create an intense, deep effect. His focus on dark colours imparts a sense of gloominess, but some of the colours grow brighter as they near the top.

One is left to wander into each artwork, interpreting the condensed blotches of colour as fallen buildings, decaying walls or simply a web of contrasting and blending colours.

The backgrounds are almost always shades of grey, perhaps a sign that nothing is ever as simple as black and white.

Away from the abstract, Haytham Jaber goes for the familiar.

His oil paintings are straightforward, freezing a moment in time forever.

In one artwork, a violinist is contemplating her next move, or reminiscing about the life she sacrificed to pursue a music career.

In another, a little girl is taking a break from play, sitting relaxed without a worry in the world.

The five talents showcased at this exhibition are certainly distinctive, with each artist’s works taking on a certain theme or formula that remains more or less unchanged with each piece.

The artworks are on display until July 19.