IRAQ: Art in troubled times, V

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Before he became a professional painter, Iraqi artist Jaffar Mohammed worked as a civil engineer, laying out roads for the Iraqi government as part of the country’s soulless state bureaucracy. His works, mostly oil on canvas, draw on no Iraqi traditions or iconography. Each work reflects an almost obsessive formalism, focusing exclusively on line, shape, space and color within the canvas. In this work, two purple circles on an orange background lend an ominous air to a melange of broad, straight strokes of blue and gray.

— Borzou Daragahi in Baghdad

Artist: Jaffar Mohammed / Courtesy: Afnan Gallery