Professional Artist
I was born in Baghdad
I have lived in Switzerland since 1999
I studied art, photography and design
I’m from the country of the east, the country of sun, light, colours, history and the stories of thousand and One Nights.
With a burning passion for exploration, I love paint and its smell.
I was born in Baghdad and I live in Lausanne in Switzerland which I love very much.
I love colours, and I enjoy playing with them on the fabric of my paintings. Sometimes it’s
canvas, others it’s a paper or even wood.
In my childhood I stood tall in front of clay and stone sculptures that were made by my
Sumerian ancestors which today provide me with the treasure of inspiration. Ancient symbols of an extinct world living on till this very day. Inspired by them, I used layers of paint that I make appear ancient to help create the image of a long forgotten time.
Being a designer and having worked in the field of design and decor, has helped me
create a painting that is whole, which bring painting, decor and design together.
I am a very anxious artist, maybe it is in my nature, that is why experimenting for me is a
type of morphine that I use to reach new ideas and fantasies for my future projects. Each of
my works allows the audience to see a unique technique and details that have been
thoroughly studied. The audience can drown while admiring the details of the amount of
obsessive hours that have been put into my artwork.
I do not hesitate in trying and discovering and I do not stop at one type of canvas or two, I
worked on a wide range of types but I enjoy working on a wooden canvas the most, I feel like I am giving the tree it came from another chance to exist. I erase its death and give it a part of my soul so it can live. I also find that wood allows me to use a wider range of techniques and actually adds a beautiful feeling to the art.
At the beginning of my career I worked on calligraphy to become a calligrapher and then I
joined realistic school of art where I worked on ancient Baghdad in its neighbourhoods and
walls. At this stage I started reducing colour palate and then shape started to also get less
pronounced.
My work has been through many changes in terms of colours, canvases and shapes until it
reached what it is today. Experimenting and searching played a big role in personalizing my
experience but the faces, I drew them in the time of the economic breakdown that the Iraqi
people went through, cruelty that cannot be described. This is why I translated this
excruciating stage of my life in paintings.
The idea is born small, when I am in a special place that fills me with emotions, this place
gives me a strong need to draw. I prepare my canvas and my colours and I relax in ecstasy
and deep relaxation and I imagine the idea on the canvas. I enter this place and I see the
features of my paining coming. When I work on this small idea I see it evolve and grow and
give birth to new idea that force me to comply to their evolution on the canvas in colour,
movement and emotion. It is like a symphony that begins calmly and grows to an explosive
beauty and every painting gives me more and more ideas for new paintings with new
emotions.
Experience makes a language between me and my paintings where we talk to one another
from the moment I begin painting until I finish. My paintings have multiple layers of colour,
one covering the other until tens of layers make integrated colours. When the painting is
done, it whispers to me ‘I am done’, that is when I leave it hung on the wall and I leave the
place. The next day, I come back and we continue our conversation, in an instance, I know if
the painting is finished or if it needs another touch. When it is done, it is very extravagant but
when it is not, I see a light exactly where the touch is needed and I go back to it with my
brush. My goal is to allow the viewer to have a long deep conversation with the painting and
to every day discover a new secret.
I feel like a Sumerian soul taken over my body and ties me the beautiful ancient history of
my land. It fills my memory with clay figures, made and buried by my Sumerian ancestors.
I reinvent these figures mixing the old and the new together, as a tribute of my loyalty to that
amazing legacy and the years of being away has made me more and more intrigued by the
history.
Arriving in Switzerland, I was impressed and influenced by my new environment, my new
home that took me in. The beauty of Switzerland and the colours of its nature shifted my
colour palate.
Before a painting becomes a horse of bird, it is emotions expressed in colour, light and lines.
Without these emotions, the painting is empty and fails to leave an expression.
I can say that the constant search has never left me space to fall in a pattern of repetition.
Trying new things has helped build up my experience and open the door to many art projects.
I use different materials, some of them are not even intended for art. The knife, the brush
and colours are not my only tools, I use more tools to manipulate the colour until it shows the
soul of ancient art or modern beauty depending on what I am working with.
Given I work with archaeology and its concept, I make sure to give my art work a shape that
resembles these archaeological artefacts which has given my work its beauty and
individuality making it look as though it has ascended from the depth of earth. I work on
disassembling my painting completely piece by piece like time has slowly caused the damage and then reassembling like it is a precious artefact and I am the archaeologist.
This requires a lot of work, I paint then I rip apart then I rebuilt. To do it well, I have to work
with great precision and maintain the artistic and beautiful nature of the painting. This makes
every piece a unique structure that adds beauty and makes one wonder of its origin and story.
My skills in other aspects have greatly increased my ability to execute this, printing design,
decor design and woodwork have all been skills that I manage to integrate in my artwork to
make it strong and powerful.
Years of estrangement has given me the experience needed for my work, where I realized and perfected my techniques and ideas for my paintings. Looking and analysing art has also
helped me develop my own abilities, artwork that one must stop in front of and admire.
To every art work there is a message that the artist wants to portray, the artist then employs
the skills, creativity, emotions and imagination necessary and deploys them in the colours and strokes to share with the audience the symbolic history, emotion, or thoughts.