Today we’d like to introduce you to Ghassan Ghaib.
Ghassan, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I was born in Baghdad (Iraq) 1964. Since I was a child, I was interested with exploring art. I started doing sculptures with clay in our garden and then moved into drawing little paintings. At that time, my mother and I visited the Iraqi museum which contains thousands of artifacts from the Mesopotamia. It was always my destiny to be an artist, art has been a necessity for me since childhood. I had then the readiness and predisposition on art which has characterized my progression as an artist today. Fortunately, the surrounding circumstances, the environment and potential aided me in developing and pushing me in the direction of art until I joined the Institute of Fine Art, a time which synchronizes with the war and its painful consequences, which we are still witnessing today.
My path was not easy. There were many struggles, challenges, suffering, the sound of bombs and the horror of war, and most importantly the unknown future. During the war, I left Iraq and moved to Jordan. I established my own studio in Amman.
I participated in many exhibitions all over the world, for example. I took part in contemporary Iraqi book art. The center for book artists, in New York-2007. I also participated in Denison University, Granville, Ohio in 2008. Also, in Houston, Texas in 2008. Moreover, I participated in British museum, Word into art of the modern middle east, London, 2006.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
My early work encouraged me to have a broad outlook of issues that would encourage us to realize existence more explicitly and try to awaken the mind and its talents by spurring both imagination and sagacity to uncover new and uninvestigated facts. I tried to organize the elements of the painting in the form of colorful relationships represented as chromatic surfaces and accumulated layers. In later stages, I used some different materials such as ready-made glass bars, chrome, and fabrics – objects and materials which people come into contact with in everyday life – in an attempt to show a specific harmony between the objective exterior and the subjective interior.
From this point onward, my artistic research led to changes and developments. These gradually concurred with the changes and developments that not only accompanied the direct incidents and conflicts of my country, but also their consequences. I, therefore, tried to make a project of documents representing the burning and devastation that has imbued every aspect of our lives – human, environmental and theoretical – and I relied upon the document itself (the image of a newspaper, a map, etc.) as a resource. Through this, I built up my work to be in harmony with documents and other materials like cords and metals, which may indicate many things, as a means of transforming the shape into an iconic symbol representing reality or to act as a symbolic or indicative resource of reality.
My recent works represent an extension of my previous experiences. Nature prevailed strongly after I submissively and yearningly threw myself into its heart. I approached it with the imagination of a child amazed by the beauty and security I missed of the city where I lived and grew up, and where visual pollution and cruelty now prevail. My work is the outcome of an experience that is abstracted from the heart of nature, an experience that is more akin to a bird’s instinct in its constant search for safety and security. The richness of beauty outweighs the images from my memory, and I have memorized innumerable image, smells, and sensual and visual experiences. In my latest works, emigration, and departure prevail along with nature, where each idea is connected to the other, not unlike a bird that has lost its nest, struck down in a storm, trying to rebuild its home again. This type of organized disorder is the general impression of my work
How do you think about success, as an artist, and what do quality do you feel is most helpful?
First, it starts as a skill. Then the skill grows by studying the history of art and explore the art world. The most important thing to me is not to give up no matter how hard the path may be.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
People can see my work through my website at: www.ghass964.com. Or through my Instagram page: @ghassanghaib. And can contact me via my email: [email protected]. People can also visit me at my studio in LA.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.4ghassan.com
- Phone: 8187995273
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ghassanghaib/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100011024108121
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