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صفحة تعنى بالفن التشكيلي |
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صفحة تعنى بالفن التشكيلي |
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Alaa Siraih
Born Basra, Iraq BA Painting, Academy of Fine Arts, Baghdad 1989 Worked as a theatre designer at the Baghdad National Theatre Has exhibited widely in Iraq, the Middle East and Europe Living and working in London since 1998
Solo Exhibitions 2009 exhibition of New Collection by at the A &C Gallery,London 2008 exhibition of New Collection by at the A &C Gallery,London 2001 Talisman & Symbols , Kufa Gallery, London 1983 Basryatha , Basra, Iraq
Group Exhibtions 2008 Art-Group exhibition of inhouse AC Gallery,London 2007 Christmas@Art-Group exhibition of inhouse AC Gallery,London 2007 Group Shows, Iraqi cultur ,Berlin, Germany 2007 birdsofwar, CANDID ARTS TRUST , LONDON 2006 Group Shows, A&C gallery, London 2005 Group Shows, london 2004 Body, Soul and Seed, London 2004 New Spring, ANO Atelier Germany 2004 Group Shows, AYA Gallery, London 2003 Group Shows, Cafe gallery,london 2003 Expressions of hope, AYA Gallery, London 2003 before.after.now : Visions of Iraq , Deluxe Gallery, Hoxton Square, London 2002 Group Shows, tablit gallery,london 2002 & 2000 Irakische Kulturtage , Lubeck , Germany 1999 Youth Artists , ANO Atelier, Lubek, Germany 1993 Azal , Brussels 1992 Alhathar International Festival, Baghdad 1991 Babylon International Festival, Baghdad 1991 & 1989 Iraqi Landscapes , Art Centre, Baghdad 1988-93 Group Shows, Art Centre, Baghdad 1988 NMM
I spend long periods in the city streets, where I find the elements...and they find me. From within the architecture, rubble, alleyways, and coloured papers scattered over these streets, I construct my artistic expression. In my paintings, I try to discover and to study the city in order to change its characters, in an attempt to radicalize it and to grant it a unique artistic and visual identity despite the diversity of the surrounding atmospheres. Cities have their own memories, history, ways and labyrinths. I did not try to reflect the city as it is, but catching it through a visual access and changing it through art into a utopia with its own symbols and senses along with my own feelings towards it as a scene with an ambiguous meaning. I dealt with it as a product of the past. From this perspective, the city seems to be a pure and a happy place. In this respect it serves as a cover, a container of the past keeping all the old impossible dreams inside. This is turning it for me into a source of sorrow, remembrances and real figures. The other view concerns the city as it is now, in the present time, along with its reality and sufferings. The city I am trying to portrait is a mixture of the past and the present, a mixture of reality and dreams, of memories and impossible desires. In my cities, the border of joy fades to pain and turns out to be a dream full of reality or a complicated and intensive symbol enriched by genuine reflections. The techniques and colours together create a world on space that is about to speak out. My city is either a souvenir or a reality that can be looked at through a sensitive eye and an emotional and excited mind. It is an attempt to fix my longings on canvas. Though it is not an invitation to go back to the past, it reflects the need to go beyond the coloured spaces and behind the entrances of my cities which are built on the ground of the past as it was in itself life waiting to be set free from its captivity.
Alaa Siraih |
