Artists of Iraqi Descent Celebrate Roots and Global Belonging

Artists of Iraqi Descent Celebrate Roots and Global Belonging Shakir Mustafa (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Maysaloun Faraj, HOME 10, acrylic on paper, 24 x 18cm, London, 27 March 2020 [End Page 15] Four artists of Iraqi descent are achieving global recognition for their paintings and handbag design. Both proud of their culture of origin and open to resources beyond national designations, these four artists are reckoning with vibrant identity issues. The careers of four artists of Iraqi descent recently witnessed significant events. One American, Maysaloun Faraj, and three Europeans see these events as defining moments to reflect on roots and belonging to a global culture. Two of the artists are British painters, Suad Al-Attar and Athier Mousawi, and one is Italian, Hussain Harba, a world-class designer of women's handbags and novelty furniture items. All four are well established, with works and products in world museums and in private collections. Faraj had a solo exhibition in Paris in 2022, and Al-Attar's granddaughter, Nesma Shubber, published a book on her grandmother's life and art, Suad Al-Attar (Heni, 2022). In April 2023 Harba won the Industrial Compass Award, one of Europe's prestigious design prizes. The youngest of the group, Mousawi had a solo exhibit last June in the arts hub Cromwell Place in central London. With roots in the Middle East, Paris, Los Angeles, and London, these artists showcase facets of a fascinating global art scene. Undoubtedly, cultural interactions impact individual and collective identities, and that clearly shows in the artists' works. Achieving recognition in a global setting with intense professional and ideological contentions requires openness to influences. Although all four artists show pride in their culture of origin, they make their mark due to embracing artistic resources well beyond national designations. A closer look at Faraj's and Al-Attar's books, and Harba's and Mousawi's recent works, illustrates an intriguing reckoning with vibrant identity issues. Click for larger view View full resolution Maysaloun Faraj in her London studio. Maysaloun Faraj: Art and Social Media Faraj's solo exhibition in Paris in June 2022 was at the Mark Hachem Gallery, with a companion catalog. Maysaloun Faraj: HOME Lockdown, 2020–2022 is richly illustrated, and it comes in numbered copies signed by the artist. Based on works done during the sheltering in place due to Covid-19, the paintings appeared on a group Facebook site dedicated to making home a subject for drawings and paintings. For an international community facing a global pandemic, the social media platform turned home into a locale for scrutinizing issues of belonging to a certain place and the possibilities of creating communal connections beyond that space. Started by Faraj herself, the Facebook platform also demonstrates the effects of one artist's engagement with communal responsibilities. In dozens of small and large paintings, Faraj offers intriguing conceptualizations of home as a flourishing and comforting environment. The community of that Facebook group, "Stay Home, Draw Home," seems to participate in some collective imagining of what it means to stay home and what it means to reinitiate affinities with physical and metaphorical spaces. Despite the uncertainty and turmoil of that pandemic period, there has been an abundance of solidarity across communities fractured by an overwhelming challenge. Click for larger view View full resolution Maysaloun Faraj, The Orange, 2002. There is nothing new about bonding during stressful times, but scrutiny of home as a physical and metaphorical space can easily turn into an examination of roots and identities when the home culture rubs shoulders with global contexts. In Faraj's painting Home 10, for instance, the artist's bright apartment seems to extend into the equally bright nocturnal view of the city. Faraj has been living in London for four decades, and she wrote in one of her comments on that page that London feels like home, too. The painting's bridge might also prompt us to think of the symbolic implications of belonging to a new locale away from a home culture. [End Page 16] Suad Al-Attar Reading Nesma Shubber's book on Suad Al-Attar feels like being carried away on a current of intriguing...