Events and
Activities

50 Years of Art and Peace

 Abbas Almosawi 

He is the product of nature. It created him in 1952, and he went on to recreate it, and never stopped:

Since the ‘jasmine tree house’ in Alnaim neighbourhood owned its name, names that gift life to everything, since his father Mohammed Saleh returned from India loaded with fascination for cameras and pictures, where Um Kulthoum’s voice and optimism were beautifully garnered under his black turban, since ‘Paris’, his mother, who gave birth to him twice: as Sheikha Al-Hubaishi and Monet’s sun; since the beach near the house where art was born; the rhythm in shipbuilders' hammering; those waves which lead paper boats into the vast; Alnaim’s intriguing harbour with its everchanging buzz and lined ships; and, Pearl Cinema which brought the world to one’s sight. Since the markets that offered all needs and desires; an encompassing heart, ceilings of the weary, colourful cloth wraps, beams of light projected through their holes on the faces of Rembrandt. Since the estrangement of going to school, the world of orchards and natural springs, of Adhari forming the boy’s core memory. Since the Teachers’ Institute, Ahmed Baqir’s lessons in 1972; long hours of practice and boundless degrees of trialling; those dialogues with Shaikh Rashid bin Khalifa Al Khalifa: listening to experience. Since Cairo, 1975. When decor took on art form; Hamed Nada’s ‘Art in the popular diaries’; Sabri Ragheb’s ‘Art as emotion’; Since Sameera, the new paradise; the active teacher who lead groups of pupils with passion at school; twenty years of oil painting that ate up his lungs: Portraiture, wildlife, heritage and women, "Henna Night" and "Moonlight Women", followed by the countryside and Manama with its homes, markets and coasts. Since the forces of change: modernity quietly and intentionally passing through his vision to his artwork: Abbas Almosawi, the social artist who paints surrounded by children. Since the longing for peace, January 1991 and abandoning war intents 24 hours before instigation; since the Peace Project which started 2000 days before the dawn of new millennium in a solid confirmation of art’s contribution to its making, all the way to 2013: Shaikh Rashid Al Khalifa inaugurates the House of Art and Peace, the new Almosawi studio.

"50 Years of Art and Peace", and of life. This exhibition is not everything in Almosawi's prolific artistic biography, but is indeed, a nod to everything in it.