Ali Eyal
Ali Eyal, (Arabic: علي عيّال) (born April 28, 1994) is an Iraqi visual artist based in Amsterdam who works internationally. His work explores the complex relationships between personal history, transitory memories, politics & identity using different media, primarily based in the medium of drawing, and further transformed through other media - such as installations art, photography, text and video. Biography. He lived first in Baghdad, Iraq, and then between Baghdad and Beirut. He left Iraq in 2017 and settled in the Netherlands in 2019. After diploma from the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad in 2015, he joined the residency  in 2016/17 at HWP/Home Workspace, Independent Study Program in Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, Lebanon. His research and work grounds war, violence, and occupation through stories, where characters are immersed in the land and trying to outwit its decline. The loss, ghosts and absence. And a small farm, like a mythical origin that was lost but every time he return in different new shapes in his works. His refusal to show his face for the past eight years. The absence of his image constitutes a dialogue with the missing persons, with the lost villages and destroyed houses, ‘because a house is  like a face too.’ In 2011, he was artist in residence in Sada for Contemporary Iraqi Art. In 2018, during the course of his residency in Beirut, developed two projects: “painting size 80 x 60” and “solo exhibition of landscapes.”  he spent time working on research paintings and writing on two projects about the image, painting, and idea of stolen lands. In 2019, he received a grants from Mophradat art fellows. Collections. Kadist Kadist Art Foundation