Yacob Ibrahim

Ibrahim began his career as an artist by imitating the old Masters of Post-Impressionism, such as Gauguin and Picasso, but also paintings of the French academies in the late 17th century.  He mainly painted people and portraits. As of the early nineties, color became important. His intense colors and abstract shapes are reminiscent of Paul Klee.
In 1996, he began developing a new style, wanting to achieve a fresco effect on the canvas. Having experimented for three years, he devoted the following seven years exclusively to developing a painting technique that was to unite sculpture and archaeological findings on the canvas.
His new technique was guided by styles of the past. He paints white oil on black oil, layer by layer, from graphic art, to sculpture, to painting.
This working method became ever more important in his oeuvre. Through these abstractions, he discovered his own style, a new inspiration, referring to archaic elements combined with antique writings. What was once canvas then became artificial stone, a material that is hard to get hold of in Syria; that is why he began mixing his own paste. The symbols that Ibrahim uses are half calligraphy, half tokens - a blend of graffiti and the excavations in his country.

The Sumeric civilization existed more than 3000 years BC in Southern Mesopotamia; then came the Assyrians, the Arameans, and the Babylonian peoples. These early high cultures which invented cuneiform writing systems and other significant cultural contributions are still very important, especially with regard to archaeology. Yacob Ibrahims works remind us of Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets. Despite the difficulties in his country, from which he was forced to emigrate to study in Europe, Ibrahim returns there again and again. His close ties to his country can be felt particularly in his last works.

Biography:
Yacob Ibrahim was born on March 3, 1956 in Hassake, Syriy (antique Mesopotamia). Already as a child, he began to express himself through art. He then studied at the Damascus art academy, but was forced to discontinue his studies for political reasons. So he moved to Italy, where he studied in Perugia for four months and then at the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence. Following his studies, he took part in two group exhibitions and held one solo exhibition in Rignano. In 1990, he returned to Syria and held one solo exhibition in 1993. Another solo exhibition followed in 2001 in Damascus, where he first exhibited his artificial stones in 2003. In 2002 and 2003, his works were also included in two exhibitions in the Netherlands.

Discussion:

"Syria and the Arab Issue – Impulses for Culture and Politics"
Oct. 22, 8 p.m.

Contributors:
Adel Jabbar, sociologist
Aldo Mazza, founder and president of "Alpha Beta"
Andreas Zipperle, Meran, friend of  Yacob Ibrahim
Valerio Dehò, curator and author, Bologna

Photo projection by Louis Zippo "Durchs milde Kurdistan"