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MAKE YOUR MARK: SOUND YOUR VOICE – Across Time and Places – Gallery

By April 13, 2018June 18th, 2019

MAKE YOUR MARK: SOUND YOUR VOICE – Across Time and Places

 

Three Artists MAKING THEIR MARKS : SOUNDING THEIR VOICE across time and place :-

     –    Iraqi Artists’ paintings, at the turn of the 20th century. Proudly treasured and personally precious paintings from Iraqi emigres’ private collections.

     –    Welshman James Bibey, a young artist with scant funds and accommodation, delights in playful night photography, in an Ascot garden.

     –    Filmmaker Ken Loach opens our minds to Benefit Seekers’ disempowerment by the system, in his 2016 Cannes Palme d’Or winning Film  I, DANIEL BELL.

 

IRAQI PAINTERS

Modern Art renaissance in Iraq started by the early 20th century.

Map of Iraq

Iraq produced many prestigious artists and painters who were talented and well informed about western art and its movements.

The Gallery shows paintings by 3 artists who were reputable and well respected including paintings by one of the very first pioneers, Mohammad Salih (Zaki) Ali.

These paintings are part of a private collection and have never been exhibited in public before.

 

Mohammad Salih (Zaki) Ali (1888 – 1976)

While studying for a military degree in Istanbul he also studied painting at the Istana Academy of Fine Arts.

He taught painting in schools and encouraged his grandchildren to paint by giving them watercolours as presents.

 

Zaid Salih (1922 – 1986)

Joined Iraqi military forces and was sent to Loughborough University (UK) to study automobile mechanics but was more attracted to painting, music and art.

He was one of the key founders of the Iraqi Pioneer Group SP (Society of Painters).

 

Nimat Hikmat (1937 – 2013)

Studied and taught art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad.

She also obtained a Masters degree in Art from the Catholic University in Washington, USA.

 

Coming soon to the Fourth Plinth, Trafalgar Square  – ‘The Invisible Enemy’ inspired by Iraq

This year’s artwork is ‘The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist’ by Michael Rakowitz. Michael started The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist project in 2006. It attempts to recreate more than 7,000 objects which have been lost forever. Some were looted from the Iraq Museum in 2003, while others were destroyed at archaeological sites across the country during the Iraq War. For the Fourth Plinth, Rakowitz has recreated the Lamassu. This winged bull and protective deity guarded the entrance to Nergal Gate of Nineveh (near modern day Mosul) from c 700 B.C, until it was destroyed by ISIS in 2015 – READ MORE HERE 

Michael Rakowitz’s syrup-tin copy of a treasure destroyed by Isis is a magnificent marriage of sorrow, futility and resistance. One of the best fourth plinth works yet – READ THE GUARDIAN’S REVIEW   (*****)

 

JAMES BIBEY  – a young artist with scant funds and accommodation, who came several times at night to have fun in the garden with a camera, torch and bucket of water! Brilliant way to see garden, afresh ! He’s disappeared again.

 

KEN LOACH – 2016 film ‘I, Daniel Blake’ – ‘‘with this movie, maybe his last, and maybe not – Ken Loach establishes himself, yet further as the John Bunyan of contemporary British cinema. The film intervenes in the messy ugly world of poverty with the secular intention of making us see that it is really happening and in a prosperous country too.” Peter Bradshaw, Guardian.

The Gallery links to the above article as its exhibit for Ken Loach – SEE HERE 

 

AND ‘out there’ – Tate Britain’s current exhibition ‘ ALL TOO HUMAN’ shows artists across time and places ( till 27 Aug 2018) – SEE HERE 

 

The Gallery shows works from the Iraqi Painters and James Bibey