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Best Painting - 2021
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Serwan Baran
Serwan Baran
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The Last Meal. Acrylic on canvas, 400x500 cm |
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Part of his series ‘After War’ (2019-2020), and ‘A Harsh Beauty’ (2020). The work was exhibited at Saleh Barakat Gallery. It is a continuation of his solo exhibition at the 2019 Venice Biennale entitled ‘Fatherland’. It highlights an eerie moment frozen in time between the dire present and an imminently ominous future—or lack thereof! As the title suggests, the soldiers depicted are having their last meal, lying in foetal positions and getting killed in the process. The sheer number of them and the homogeneity of their faces and clothes suggest the inhumane nature of their situation and their interchangeability and dispensability. To stress the poignancy of the piece even further, metal plates containing a lump of bread (sawdust-dry with flecks of mold) are attached to the canvas, allocating to the viewer another layer of sensory experience to the artwork, allowing them to place themselves in that exceptional circumstance thanks to the life-size scale of the plates.
In an antithesis to the artistic chronicles of perceived glory and patriotism in war, Baran, an Iraqi-Kurdish artist, makes it a point to remove that layer of aggrandizement and reveal the bloody, desolate, and devastative results in his raw and sincere takes. Stripping away the fabricated and carefully curated exaltation that comes after war, his large scale painting is intimidating but equally subversive of the stateliness of nationalistic depictions of war heroes and generals. Instead, he paints the ones at the vanguard, the little man who faces the worst and pays the highest price in exchange for empty promises, and more often has much to lose in the process including his life.
Having been both a participant in the trenches as well as observer on the sides, the artist maintains a unique perspective on the concept of war. Born in Baghdad in 1968, he was drafted to serve as a soldier during the Iran-Iraqi War, and later worked as a military or war artist during the First Gulf War. His life had been perpetually punctuated by instances of war and its effects. He was subjected to the horrors and sectarian violence ever since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. His art is a reflection of the carnage and suffering that ensued, but also brings forth many questions regarding power dynamics, fear, anxiety and existential crises. |
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