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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New York, June 14, 2006: The Pomegranate Gallery is proud to present Iraqi Art Today, representing works by Iraqi artists, running from June 14 to September 4, 2006. The exhibiting artists have not only survived wars and years of oppression, but their art reflects the irrepressible spirit of rebirth and the resilience of the creative spirit. Largely abstract, these paintings stand as tactile and visible testament to the most admirable traits of resilience and rebirth. Although none of the artists display an overtly political message, independent exhibition curator Peter Hastings Falk says that viewers will discover an underlying social edginess at the soul of what is largely sophisticated abstraction. Falk, who has served as Editor-in-Chief of ArtNet, Artprice, and AskART is best known for his art reference books, including the multi-volume Who Was Who in American Art.

Ghassan Muhsin is Iraq’s Ambassador to Bahrain. “Three elements make my work what it is today,” he says, “Floral, architectural motifs, and traditional calligraphy. My paintings are a result of a fusion between the three. As human beings, we are the children of nature. We cannot separate from it. We grew up surrounded by trees and greenery, spent years in the mosques, and recited the Holy Qu’ran in all of it’s beautiful fonts and calligraphies.” His work has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East.

Hana Malallah is a painter and printmaker living and working in Baghdad. She is widely regarded as the leading female artist from Iraq. Hana received her B.F.A. from the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad in 1988, her M.F.A. in 2000 and her PhD in the philosophy of art in 2005. She continues to teach and lecture at the college while pursuing her painting. She considers Iraq’s long history in the fine arts a national treasure much more important than the country’s oil. Her works are held by the Royal Jordanian Museum and private collections worldwide.

Esam Pasha describes how the bombing in Baghdad during the start if the Iraqi war took his art in an unexpected direction: “During the war in 2003, neither acrylics nor oils could be bought anywhere. Soon, I ran out of supplies. I looked about my studio and I noticed several boxes of color crayons. I began to experiment melting the crayons. Painting with hot wax is absolutely unlike any other media. It is like leaving marks of fire. Burning and melting. On hot nights, Baghdad was bombed and burning. Tears ran down many faces. And in my studio, tears of wax ran in different directions, making lines and filling spaces. I would crush the melted wax bar onto paper, pressing out the soul of the color to be embraced by the paper fibers.”

Mohammed Al-Shammarey’s paintings also became a reaction to the war and occupation. “The landscapes of Van Gogh no longer were of interest to me, for my soul was unconsciously drawn to meditate upon this new world of globalization that was thrust upon us. We became inundated by barcodes, hard rock, fast food meals, e-mails, intelligent missiles, weapons of mass destruction, HIV, mad cow disease, genetic maps, cloning, nuclear war heads, and terrorism. The creative process often fed off a continuously confusing reaction to these new characteristics of globalization. It was in this cauldron that my book-arts were born. They reflect a combination of my Middle-Eastern heritage and our westernization, acknowledging that we are being led into a world of the unknown,” says Al-Shammarey.

Hayder Ali has exhibited his artwork extensively in the Middle East. In referring to his recent work Ali said, “My works are also about reprocessing the elements of our environment. Throughout our long history, Mesopotamian culture is full of such examples. I took elements such as the book and the palm frond and altered their usual use, releasing their buried and inherent expressive power and re-presenting them as art.”

Qasim Sabti has created a series of collages made from books that were looted from the National Library of Iraq, destroyed and scattered about the streets. His abstract collages can be appreciated for their aesthetic power and beauty but they are also poignant and rare examples of art that stands as a historical document, and evidence of conflict. Upon graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad in 1980, Sabti established a workshop for Arabic calligraphy and painting. Beginning in 1985, he taught at the Baghdad University of Technology, and in 1986 participated in the first Baghdad International Biennial. In 1987, he returned to the Academy of Fine Arts to teach painting. In 1992, he founded the Hewar Art Gallery in Baghdad, which has since become an important and active oasis for Iraqi artists (“Hewar” means dialogue). He is also Secretary of the Iraqi Cultural Council. His paintings are in private collections throughout Europe, the Middle East, the United States, Japan and Korea.

Ghassan Gayeb structures his works in layers of color so that the combinations — sometimes opposing and sometimes congruent — form a harmonious whole. He introduces varied materials and textures to enable fluid _expression. The artist’s chosen materials include textile, glass, minerals and reflecting chrome. His works have been exhibited throughout Europe and the Middle East.

In addition to the ever-present realities of the war, Nazar Yahya says that his paintings reflect his environment, which he finds dominated by the colors of sand, dust, tar and oxidation. “It is rare to find bright colors in our environment,” he says, “because it is full of dust and sand storms, and everything seems rusted.” Thus, one can often find in Nazar’s oil paintings a mixture of sand, construction materials and other found objects. His powerful, abstract shapes have been inspired by irregularly-shaped pieces of metal and patterns impressed by tire treads in the hot tar of the roads. Yahya believes his works tend to “take on the identity of large iron sculptures.”

Delair Shaker grew up surrounded by art, culture and creativity. His mentor was his father, Saad Shaker, a pioneer in ceramic art in Iraq, who instilled in him the love of art and appreciation of beauty in all forms. He spent five years at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad and later accepted the position of art teacher at a renowned private school in Jordan. During his years in Jordan, Delair established a ceramic studio where he experimented with the use of different materials in combination with clay, which resulted in the production of a new form of ceramic art. Delair was actively involved in the art movement in the region, taking part in exhibitions held in Jordan and other Arab countries.

Pomegranate Gallery was established by the modernist sculptor Oded Halahmy, a thirty-five-year resident of SoHo, whose sculptures will be included in the group exhibition. “As an artist born in Baghdad, it is very exciting for me to bring works by Middle Eastern artists, as well as leading contemporary Iraqi artists to New York City,” says Halahmy. The artist, whose large abstract sculptures are held by museums including the Guggenheim, the Hirschhorn, and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, felt compelled to open a gallery that would introduce Americans to serious artistic initiatives from the Middle East. He observes that Americans are not only becoming increasingly international in their art collecting, but hopes that his gallery will serve as a cultural ambassador to awaken American consciousness of Middle Eastern Art.

The Pomegranate Gallery is supported in part by the Oded Halahmy Foundation for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) non-profit cultural organization created to fund artistic expressions that promote a greater cultural understanding of the Middle East, thereby fostering peace and hope around the world.