Fahar’s biography is marked
by various stations
„As a child you take everything for granted. I grew up in Kuwait in a room from which I could see the sea. We spent our summer vacations in Yugoslavia and Baghdad. The perception of the world around me and also of the respective landscape did not happen consciously; that came much later. My first painting at the age of 10 showed motifs like mountains and huts. Perhaps it‘s these themes from my nomadic life that have shaped me.“
Everyone is looking for
what they don‘t have.
Fahar Al-Salih’s work is just as little linear as his curriculum vitae and is rather permeated by themes to which he cyclically returns again and again. Central to his work is his perspective of building bridges between the European and Arab cultural spheres.
Born in Belgrade in 1964 to an Iraqi father and a Serbian mother, he did not get to know then Yugoslavia as a home but grew up in Kuwait. Fahar Al-Salih‘s private biography is shaped by systemic upheavals and economic crises of countries – circumstances far beyond his control.
One of the core themes in the artist‘s works is home. The subject is very personal, and yet he repeatedly opens it up as an artistic space for the viewer.
These themes accompany him artistically to this day. Fahar Al-Salih did not embark on the artistic path until his late twenties. The Kuwait of the 70s and 80s, in which Al-Salih grew up, did not see art as a means of earning a living; creative practices were much more likely to be found in crafts. In 1979, the International Year of the Child, there was a small artistic ray of hope for Al-Salih at the tender age of 15: A drawing he had made was chosen to represent Kuwait at UNICEF that year. The work was rejected, however, because he was not a Kuwaiti child – a political decision that would ensure that the artist would stop painting for many years to come.
Due to the political unrest, the family decided to move to Vienna in 1984, where Fahar Al-Salih stayed until 1995. Here, inspired by the city‘s cultural life, he began to catch up on art history through self-study, thus equipping himself with the tools of the trade. It was not until 1989 that he took up colors again after the rejection of his work in his youth, and in the first work after so many years, he showed motifs that would continue to accompany him: a drawing of dark mountains and a meadow.
Professionalization followed in 2009 with studies for adults at the Bad Reichenhall Art Academy with Markus Lüpertz. In 2011 he built on this foundation and studied with Jerry Zeniuk and his assistant Ingrid Floss. Later he attended Hermann Nitsch‘s master class at the AdBK Kolbermoor.
The artist has been living in Karlsruhe, Germany, for many years now. The Arab influence remained in many series of works and is still evident today.
Fahar’s
biography
is marked
by various
stations
„As a child you take everything for granted. I grew up in Kuwait in a room from which I could see the sea. We spent our summer vacations in Yugoslavia and Baghdad. The perception of the world around me and also of the respective landscape did not happen consciously; that came much later. My first painting at the age of 10 showed motifs like mountains and huts. Perhaps it‘s these themes from my nomadic life that have shaped me.“
Everyone is
looking for
what they
don‘t have.
Fahar Al-Salih’s work is just as little linear as his curriculum vitae and is rather permeated by themes to which he cyclically returns again and again. Central to his work is his perspective of building bridges between the European and Arab cultural spheres.
Born in Belgrade in 1964 to an Iraqi father and a Serbian mother, he did not get to know then Yugoslavia as a home but grew up in Kuwait. Fahar Al-Salih‘s private biography is shaped by systemic upheavals and economic crises of countries – circumstances far beyond his control.
One of the core themes in the artist‘s works is home. The subject is very personal, and yet he repeatedly opens it up as an artistic space for the viewer.
These themes accompany him artistically to this day. Fahar Al-Salih did not embark on the artistic path until his late twenties. The Kuwait of the 70s and 80s, in which Al-Salih grew up, did not see art as a means of earning a living; creative practices were much more likely to be found in crafts. In 1979, the International Year of the Child, there was a small artistic ray of hope for Al-Salih at the tender age of 15: A drawing he had made was chosen to represent Kuwait at UNICEF that year. The work was rejected, however, because he was not a Kuwaiti child – a political decision that would ensure that the artist would stop painting for many years to come.
Due to the political unrest, the family decided to move to Vienna in 1984, where Fahar Al-Salih stayed until 1995. Here, inspired by the city‘s cultural life, he began to catch up on art history through self-study, thus equipping himself with the tools of the trade. It was not until 1989 that he took up colors again after the rejection of his work in his youth, and in the first work after so many years, he showed motifs that would continue to accompany him: a drawing of dark mountains and a meadow.
Professionalization followed in 2009 with studies for adults at the Bad Reichenhall Art Academy with Markus Lüpertz. In 2011 he built on this foundation and studied with Jerry Zeniuk and his assistant Ingrid Floss. Later he attended Hermann Nitsch‘s master class at the AdBK Kolbermoor.
The artist has been living in Karlsruhe, Germany, for many years now. The Arab influence remained in many series of works and is still evident today.