Salman Albasri
All about the artist
A painting is within and without, between the dark remoteness of the within and the clear remoteness of without, which is form.
A native of "Abu Al-Khasib," Salman Al-Basri was born in Basra, southern Iraq, in 1939. His education in painting began at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad, from which he graduated in 1960. As a student at Baghdad's Academy of Fine Arts, he studied anatomy, which would serve as the foundation for his future work. Furthermore, a key role in his career was as head of the design department at the Film and Theater Foundation. It was this inspiration that led him to express the dramatic in his works.
The Beginning
His first exhibition was held in 1963. The artist held over twenty solo exhibitions following that, as well as participating in a number of group exhibitions. This was encouraged by the Shadow Group in Basra which he was one of the founding members of.
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Abstraction was only an oblique technique used by Al-Basri. Keeping both abstraction and personification apart while at the same time connecting them, he remained insistent on standing in between. Taking away his first aesthetic education based on a love of drawing nature pictures and people's faces and bodies would not allow him to search for his identity. He showcased this through his book "Anatomy," which he published as a credit to his teaching career.
Preservation
The artist, who once fantasized that Basra would be the world's epicenter of artistic modernity, is now a resident of a Dutch city where he only encounters the ghosts of people he wishes he had met when he was younger.
It is safe to conclude that he was content with painting because that was the way he chose to live his life—profoundly.
In spite of this, he still carries the weight of his time spent in Iraq with him. He continues to include many Iraqi folk symbols in his paintings because he finds their aesthetics to be endearing.