MODERN ART IN IRAQ: LEADING FIGURES AND INTERNATIONAL PERSONALITIES
Leila Kubba Kawash
Kawash
wrote: “In this latest group of paintings, I have merged visual impressions,
past recollections, the colours of my heritage together with new experiences
and influences. Predominantly, I have drawn inspiration from Renaissance
paintings. From their sense of pictorial dramas, tales of rebirth and tragedy,
their theatrical interpretation of movement and design, the paradoxical
presence of both lightness and solidity - like the perpetual struggle towards
enlightenment, rooted somewhere between dreamscapes and reality.
This
has been the challenge of my work; to capture that buoyancy between two
realms, the floating fluid movements, the echoes that resonate between past
and present, suspended and uncertain. Explosions of drama, in colour and
texture, influenced and propelled by the works of master painters such as
Ruebens, Titian, Caravaggio, Raphael - who brought about the dawn of
Renaissance, giving way to new paths of exploration
I
have used the surface of my canvas to accommodate the reaches of imagination,
to stretch physical gestures and strokes of colossal movement, to capture a
clash of currents within pictorial representations, swirling articulations of
space. Having lived in Greece for many years has added a sense of historical
drama to my work - the tempestuous sails of Greek mythology and the bold
ancient temples. Its passion that often verges on the melodramatic, the
magical, is in contrast to Islamic artistic disciplines. Emotion is the
opposite of geometry, yet, I have strived to harmonize between the two, to
find a meeting point, an artistic treaty. The ghosts I have drawn from are
inspired by translations from clay tablets of the Sumerian goddess Inanna,
Queen of Heaven and Earth. The complexities of this forgotten goddess has both
fascinated me and stirred within me a sense of longing, of loss. She has moved
me, even through this gulf of time, and I have painted the obscured outline of
her spirit, in many layered dimensions and shadows. Inanna embodies woman
throughout time, in her strength and power, and her vulnerability.
My
paintings make sense of the fragments, like the archeologist, the assembler of
fragmented stones, the unifier of broken pieces of self. “
Venus and the
Ruins The Shield
II Magic Melodia
Her biographer wrote: “Leila Kubba was born in Baghdad of Iraqi
and American heritage. She graduated with a National Diploma of Art and Design
from the Manchester School of Art and Architecture and also studied at the
Corcoran College of Art and Design over a period of five years. She has had
several exhibitions across the world. Her solo exhibitions were held at
Leighton House Museum and Art Gallery in London; Magna Gallery in Greece;
Atrium of International Monetary Fund and Alif Gallery in Washington, DC; and
a touring exhibition at the University of Wisconsin, Saint Louis University,
Chicago Oriental Institute, Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts and Brigham Young
University .Among her group exhibitions were: "Forces of Change" at the
National Museum of Women in Washington, DC, where one of her paintings was
featured on the cover of the exhibition catalog; "Strokes of Genius" at the
Brunei Gallery in London; "Interpretations in Texture" at Michael Stone
Gallery in Washington, DC.”
To send a message to the Artist please e-mail her at:
Leila@calresco.org
End of the article.