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Ibrahim Rashid

Ibrahim Rashid is a Swedish, Canadian -Iraqi artist. After the first Gulf War in 1991, he lived in Sweden and Canada, where he currently lives and works. His work reflects the issues between power and human, in its search for political loopholes and violence. He addresses both the physical reality of the human body in a chaotic landscape. For nearly three decades, he has used painting, photography drawing, and video art to explore the issues of violence and politics and its impact on mankind. He has an extensive body of artworks with a history of national and international exhibitions. His work has been exhibited in numerous museums and art galleries in the Scandinavian Countries, Europe, North America, and the Middle East, including the Mori Contemporary Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, MAI (Montréal, arts intercultural) Gallery, Montréal, Canada, the Al Sharjah Biennial, UAE, KWAG-5thBiennial, Canada, Malmoe Art Museum, Sweden, YZZ Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada, and Darat al Funun, Amman, Jordan, among others.

Life and Career:

Iraq, 1978-1991 When he was a teenager, in 1975, he worked as an illustrator in the only liberal opposition newspaper then called Tareek Al Shaab. He would be publishing critical drawings on a daily basis regarding social-political life during the rule of Saddam Hussein, often setting himself in a vulnerable position as a young student during an unstable regime and as a result, he was arrested more than once. As a critical voice within a growing liberal cultural movement, he found himself studying at the Academy of Fine Arts at Baghdad University between 1978 and 1982. After the outbreak of the First Gulf War in 1980, he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and then had forced to join the army on the front line of the war. The war experience, like any experience where the human body is placed within a landscape of destruction, carried itself on thought my life in my approach to his work. It offered harsh but realistic visual details of life and death. The experience was primarily focused on a memory of a tank exploding behind him, becoming a crucible and icon of power and war, to him as stated before that this experience reminds him of the alchemical conception that in order to produce new metal, you have to destroy the old.

Through a very hard experience and visual memory, his way of transitioning turned him back to art and its rich materiality. When Gaston Bachelard, the French philosopher, wrote about fire in his pioneering work The Psychoanalysis of Fire, he was trying to find a scientific truth that could elucidate the alluring thoughts that lead inspiration astray. About fire and the respect for it, he writes “Fire and heat offer fun amential explanations within different fields as they give us unforgettable memories and simple and decisive personal experiences.” This idea inspired him to document the experience in a series of drawings in black and white depicting these soldiers who gave their lives inside that tank and was later on published during wartime in a very popular culture magazine called Afaq Arabieh in 1986. Immediately after the end of his military service, his partner sculptor, Maha Mustafa build their first studio in a large flourishing garden and had their first solo exhibition at Baghdad Contemporary Art Gallery in 1987. His part was showcasing a two-part art series entitled The Mechanical Body and Human-Scape.

The work, expressed through abstract and surreal forms, expressed robot-like figures in a landscape of humans and machines. This first show helped him to develop his style of abstraction that started expressing the manifestation of speed and dynamism of destruction within contemporary society. The exhibition was considered by some art critics as, the first post-modern art exhibition in Iraqi art history through its vast use of media styles such as installations, sculpture, painting, drawing, photography, documentation, monotype, and printmaking. This dislocated him from the wars to studying art and growing within the art scene both as an artist and writer helped set the stage for his following migration and professional career as an artist and art teacher.

Sweden, 1991-2005

His immigration to Sweden allowed him to strive and unleash his creative freedom on a personal and professional level; gaining an international artistic experience in both his art and education the deeper I interacted and integrated within the deep roots of the Scandinavian culture. In Sweden, his work was allowed to re-develop through a different perspective and address more in-depth and influential topics related to the memory of the war and the environment. The hospitality and generosity of the Swedish culture set a new stage to address the environment he left behind but was connected to as a new citizen and allowed for a mobile distinguished and important exhibition to develop; Checkpoint X. The exhibition would be traveling through several art museums and art galleries in Sweden and Denmark between the years 2005-2007. Checkpoint X, was the chosen title for the work and ideas to follow within those years in Sweden and Denmark. A very apt title, it reaches out to the ideas and writing of the Spanish philosopher Eugenio Trias who wrote about the concept of the border zone and how human creativity is shaped by the transformation that takes place within such spaces. During those years, his paintings underwent a great change and development becoming more of an expressive abstraction combined with a more intensified interest in fragmentation. Square canvases became a prominent unit forming bigger pictures when coming together - I became very conscious of the parts of a whole forming a greater impression.

The elements of this process contained numerous layers of white - a color that I started using more and more and even infiltrating his living and studio spaces. Living in Malmö, a very often overcast city south of Sweden, his studio would occupy the basement - the white became windows leaving room for colors and forms to freely take shape. The paintings would come with multiple coats of paint, creating a world expressed in an incessant new range of nuances, not just depicting, but transforming the canvas. This created a three-dimensionality where the light conditions would often make the experience of the painting differ, much like as Werner Aspenstrom in his poem Eyewitness puts it; “You can’t step twice into the same flood of light”. His artwork always explored the pollution of making on nature and its elements between man and the environment; earth, light, sound, and matter. This was clear after had sent an inquiry to his family in Baghdad about what had happened to my once so flourishing garden around my studio in Baghdad after the Second Gulf War.

The response told him that the trees had withered away and the fruits shrunken. Such things leave deep impressions. These impressions are what are captured in his work. This circles back to what was mentioned before in his essay Game of Burning Stones, how Maha’s childhood experience in the fields of Karkouks, rich in its oil, would skip rocks seeing sparks flame up from the impact. As the journey expanded, the memories grew more enmeshed. This started reflected in his work and process. He started examining many tools and media, creating a body of public art projects in Sweden that evoked the close connections that human has to nature. His painting series such as Landscape without Boundary, What About My Garden, and Landscape in Process started taking shape. Followed by that came the two published books Beyond 100 C degrees and Checkpoint X containing images and essays on man and environment written by the Swedish writer's Dan Jönsson and Clemens Altgård. Amongst these projects, he also worked on the set design together with the Swedish poet Lasse Söderberg during the International Poetry Festival in 1996, 1998, and 2000.

Canada, 2005-Present

His second migration took place from Sweden to Canada in 2005. His work started expanding further, and a clear door opened to work as an international artist as he pursued his graduate degree. Influenced by American Contemporary Art, I was introduced to start a new expression of environmental destruction rendered through video art and photography - work that would be exhibited around multiple art galleries and art institutes. Getting to know more about the North American art scene, his understanding of international activities, and seeing many cultures meeting allowed for a greater in-depth view of people within their environments. In 2007, his canvases gained a wider expression as it was exhibited along with his video artwork. His former painterly language started to manifest in dynamic abstract landscapes. Alluding a lot to movements such as Abstract Expressionism and New Realism, there was a re-emergence of representational forms within his work, taking shape in 2007 and onwards. These forms would once again take their place within the relationship of man’s destruction on nature. In Toronto, he has participated in numerous national and international exhibitions such as his first solo exhibition at the YYZ Gallery, Toronto, curated by the artist and art critic Dr. Vladimir Spicanovic, the former dean of the Faculty of Art at OCAD University, later on at MAI Montreal Arts Interculturels Gallery in Montreal.

Artistic Proce

Selected solo art Exhibition • Arab Express, Mori Contemporary Art Museum. Art Exhibition Tokyo, Japan,2012 • Monochromatic, KW|ag 5th Biennial, Kitchener, Ontario Canada, 2011 • Landscape in Process. Gallery Svalund, Malmö, Sweden, 2016 • In Process 2, Gallery Svanlund, Malmö, Sweden, 2014 • A Moment before You Close Your Eyes, MAI Gallery, Montréal, Canada. 2011 • A Moment before You Close Your Eyes, Aspace Gallery, Toronto, Canada,2010 • Looking for Oxygen, Passagen Konsthall, Sweden, 2009 • Book Arts Project, The Arthur & Mata Jaffe Center, Texas, USA, 2008 • Landscape in Process, 2 of 2 Gallery, Toronto, Canada, 2008 • Landscape in Process, SödertäljeKonsthall Sweden, 2008 • In Process, Gallery Svalund, Malmö, Sweden, 2008 • CheckPoint X, KonstahallenTrollhättan, Trollhättan, Sweden, 2007 • Fragile Landscape, YYZ Artists´ Outlet, curated by artist and art critic Dr. Vladimir Spicanovic,Toronto, Canada, 2006 • Design Now, Form Design Centre, Malmö, Sweden, 2006 • Book Arts Project, The University of North Texas Art Gallery, Texas, USA,2005 • Fragile Landscape, Stafanstorps Konsthall, Stafanstorp, Sweden, 2005 • Checkpoint X, Landskrona Konsthall, Sweden, 2005 • What about My Garden, Gallery Svalund, Malmö, Sweden, 2005 • What about My Garden, Skovhuset Art Museum, Vaerlose, Denmark, 2005 • Beyond 100 °C, Darat al Funun Museum, Amman, Jordan, 2004 • ArteEast, the NewSpace, New York, USA, 2004 • Landscape without Boundary, Mösting Hus, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2003 • Beyond 100 °C, VäxjöKonsthall, Växjö, Sweden, 2002 • Landscape in Process, Skånes Konstförening, Malmö, Sweden, 2002 • Beyond 100 °C FarumKonsthall, Farum, Danmark, 2002 • Beyond 100 °C Vänermuseet, Lidköping, Sweden, 2002 • Beyond 100 °C ValfiskenKonsthall, Simrshamn, Sweden, 2002 • Book Arts Project, Grinell Gallery, Iowa, USA, 2002 • Strokes of Genius, Faulconer Gallery, Iowa, USA, 2001 • Strokes of Genius, Hotbath Gallery, London, England, 2001 • Strokes of Genius, Brunei Gallery, London, England, 2001 • “Beyond Landscape”, Kiruna Art Museum, Kiruna, Sweden, 2000 • “Maha&Ibrahim”, BarbackaKonsthall, Kristianstad, Sweden, 1998 • “Beyond Landscape”, SkånesKonstförening, Malmö, Sweden, 1997 • “Landscape Transformation”, Gallery 2112, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1996 • “Fragile Human Landscape”, LillaKonstsalongen, Malmö, Sweden, 1991

Selected Honors Prizes and Grants

• Ontario Council for The Arts, Canada, 2012 • Iaspis “The Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Visual Artists” 2011 • Ontario Council for The Arts, Canada, 2010 • Graduate Entrance Scholarship, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2009 • Canada Council for the Arts, 2007 • Swedish Council for the Arts, the Arts Grant Committee, Sweden,2006-2007 • The Swedish National Council for Culture Grant, 2005 • Copenhagen AMT and Skov Art Centre, International Grant, Denmark, 2005 • Olle Svanlund Art Grant, Sweden, 2005 • The SwedBank’s Cultures Grant, Sweden, 2004 • The Arts Grant Committee, Sweden, 2003 • Kultur Utviklingsmidlerna, Farum, Denmark, 2000 • Kiruna Art Grants, Kiruna, Sweden, 1999 • The Arts Grant Committee, Sweden, 1996 • Award in Painting, the 5th Wasiti Biannual, Baghdad, Iraq, 1987 • First prize of the Iraqi Art Critics, Baghdad, Iraq, 1985

Selected Publications

• Arab Art Histories: The Khalid Shoman Collection, Darat al Funun, Amman, Jordan, 2013 • Arab Express, Mori Contemporary Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, 2012 • New Vision: Arab Contemporary Art in the 21st Century, London, UK, 2011 • Fragile Landscape, YYZ Artists´ Outlet, by Vladimir Spicanovic, Toronto, CA,2006 • Checkpoint X, an art book containing published in Sweden and Denmark written by Dan Jönsson and Clemens Altgård, Malmö Sweden, 2005 • Strokes of Genius: Contemporary Iraqi Art, London, UK, 2001 • Beyond 100o C, an art book on Mankind and Environment, published in Sweden and Denmark were written by Clemens Altgård, Malmö Sweden, 2000 • With Maha and Ibrahim an art catalog written by Lasse Söderberg, Malmö, Sweden, 1998

Selected Public Art Works

• The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto (CAMH), Canada (shortlist). 2016 • Large scale mural painting, 600x180 cm, Stainless steel, glass, acrylic, Erik's berg, Sweden, 2012 • City of Burlington, Ontario, Canada, 2011 • Oshawa Courthouse project (shortlist), • 2009 ”What about my Garden” Public artwork, Turning TorsoTower, a new building of the Spanish architect Santiago “Calatrava, Malmö Sweden, 2006 • Landscape in Progress 1” Turning Torso Tower, Malmö, Sweden, 2005 • Stage design, International Poetry Days, Sweden, 2000-2004 • The City of Kiruna Hospital, Kiruna, Sweden, 2000 • The City of Kiruna, Sweden, 2000 • The City of Lomma. The library, Sweden, 1999 • The City of Malmö. The General Hospital, Sweden, 1997 • The City of Malmö. The General Hospital, Sweden, 1996 • Municipality of Malmö’s project” Reflections”, Malmö, Sweden1994 ions”, Malmö, Sweden1994