Rawan al Mukhtar (b.1991, Baghdad) lives and works in Baghdad. Her most recent work, the video installation Tellaqtin, 2015, explores the relationship between Eastern and Western culture. A student at the College of Fine Arts, University of Baghdad, where she has specialised in painting, Rawan often stages and photographs the scenes that she wants to portray, bringing in elements of theatre and photography into her work. An earlier series of drawings and sketches, here displayed, depicts the urban fabric of the city she lives in: low, concrete houses lined with blast walls and palm trees, with trucks and 4×4 vehicles along the road. She speaks to Ruya about her work, and the life of young artists in Baghdad.
From the series Addiction, 2015. Courtesy of the artist.
Your most recent work is an installation, which includes the video of a man pretended to go to the bathroom. How did audiences react to this when you showed it at the Burj Babel Media Centre in Baghdad? I filmed my friend, the actor Mohamed Moneka, as he got up from a toilet seat and zipped his trousers. Some people laughed and others were confused. There isn’t much video art being made or watched in Iraq. The piece also includes screen prints of different toilets.
From the video installation Tellaqtin, 2015, at the Tarkib exhibition, Burj Babel for Media Development. Courtesy of the artist and Burj Babel.
Screenprint from the video installation Tellaqtin, 2015. Courtesy of the artist and Burj Babel.
What was the aim of the piece? The toilets became for me a symbol of the difference between East and West. The toilet in the middle of the work is an Iraqi toilet – it’s a hole in the ground. The other ones around it, are Western. I want to show the domination of Western culture also in the East.
What made you turn towards more conceptual pieces in your recent work? At the College of Fine Arts here in Baghdad, you can work with painting, theatre, photography or drawing, but you can’t mix the mediums or genres. This also the case with Iraqi artists in general. When I came across Iraqi artists like Dilan Abidin and Wafaa Bilal, it changed my thoughts about art, and what I could do as an artist. Wafaa Bilal’s work uses so many different mediums, like his piece the 3rd I in which he tattoos himself. I have since tried to explore different mediums and materials.
Before that, you were painting. How would you describe your work then? In one of my paintings, Addiction 2015, I addressed the gap between the sexes in Iraq, and the unequal treatment of women and men, girls and boys in our families: men can do what they like, but women’s activities are more restricted. I drew and painted from photographs, and often staged the scenes that I wanted to paint. The backgrounds are simple, to focus on the figure, the movement and the emotions. I like to have a strong contrast between light and dark. I was influenced by artists like Omar Ortiz, whose work I have found online. His style of painting is known as Hyperrealism, because of its photographic qualities.
Al Mukhtar often stages scenes in photographs that she later reproduces as paintings. Image courtesy of the artist.
As a young artist in Baghdad, what challenges do you face? Young artists like me find it difficult to show their work because older generations of artists won’t let us. They are in charge of the arts institutions and decide whose work gets exhibited. Usually they prioritize their own work or that of their family and friends.
Drawings of Baghdad, 2013-15. Courtesy of the artist.
What are your upcoming projects? I am developing a piece with a friend based on a prayer carpet. We will use it as a point of discussion on the concept of “tribes” and “tribalism” in Iraq. Visitors will be asked to sit and draw on the carpet.
What would you do to develop the arts scene in Baghdad? I would like to display my upcoming work, the piece about carpets in particular, somewhere in Baghdad where artists do not usually go. Places like Burj Babel attract artists only, and so most people in Baghdad have no exposure to the arts scene here. I believe that art can give them a new perspective on our problems.
From the series Addiction, 2015. Courtesy of the artist.