NAHRIN MALKI’s Paintings at Mesopotamian Night 2017

We are glad to announce that in cooperation with Assyrian Arts Institute, the paintings of Nahrin Malki will be exhibited and auctioned off at Mesopotamian Night 2017 on October 7th in San Jose. 

Born in Syria, her country has been the source of her techniques and materials, and the central theme of her work: Suffering.

Narhin Malki completed her graduate art studies in Kamishli in 1993. She immigrated to the Netherlands in 2001 and entered the AKI Kunstacademie in Enschede in 2007. Although she graduated with a specialty in modern painting, she had begun early on to use stamping, manual graphic printing, and different textiles, employing stamps, symbols, and archetypes of Mesopotamian origin.

She started working in black and white, with shades of grey supplying the metaphorical nuances of humanity and morality. Eventually she came to add strong colors, though black always dominant, enabling her to communicate the whole and the parts of her story, paintings within a painting.

Nahrin Malki was chosen as a representative of modern art from the Netherlands to represent the country in Poland where her artwork was exhibited at the Galeria Miejska Arsenal from May 10 to June 2nd, 2013, sponsored by the Dutch embassy.  On the opening day of the exhibition, the renowned Dutch art historian and curator, Professor Elvira van Eijl said, “Nahrin comes from a very old culture and remembers the stories told by elders about the genocide of her people-stories of abuse, war, starvation, and the persecution of thousands of refugees.  She realized that this misery is not only part of her personal life story but also that of so many other people around the world.  The suffering of human beings is a continuous universal problem.”

Of her central theme, Malki says, “Suffering does not discriminate. I show this through my personal experiences of grief, images of the downtrodden, and violations of human rights.” By combining ancient techniques with modern collage, she brings together her dreams with her reality, her history with her present, and her people with herself.

The Assyrians

56×96, Acrylics, Mixed stamp technique on canvas, 2012.

This painting is a fusion of ancient Assyrian stamp technique and the modern art, inspired by the fact that at the Assyrian epoch, forms and faces took a more realistic form compare with the previous epochs, such as Babylonian and Akkadian, which were more abstract in their art.   The artist said, “The technique is a part of my studies of historical Mesopotamian Stamps.”

Khabour

54×61, Stamped Technique on canvas
The inspiration is ISIS entering villages on the shore of the Khabour River.  It represents the dark side of rolling in, causing genocide and the migration of the Assyrians, and all so quickly.

The Sadness of Mother Assyria

40×56, Stamp technique on canvas,
This piece depicts an anguished mother Assyria unable to protect its future generations.  At the bottom, we see the birth of a new generation she is so concern about.

The Death Bats

40×56, Stamp technique on canvas
Bats are an embodiment to the continues draining of our humanity. They feed on it, and are more abundant than at any time in history.  They will never go extinct as long as human tribulations continue.

The Last Breath

54×61, Stamped Technique on canvas
This artwork shows miserable bodies moving to the rhythm of tragic events, repeating themselves over and over in the history of human beings.