Iraqi artist Sadik Alfraji blends art and philosophy as a means of expanding the conceptual boundaries of his aesthetic. Much of his work explores the expressionistic intensity of the graphic form, with a focus on ideas and concepts about human existence. His haunting mixed-media compositions, inhabited by shadowy figures and faceless bodies, speak of the artist experience of exile, loss, and fragmentation.
Born in 1960 in Baghdad, Iraq, Alfraji now lives and works in Amersfoort, the Netherlands. His work is included in numerous private and pubic collections, including those of the National Museum of Modern Art (formerly Saddam Art Center), Baghdad; Royal Society of Fine Arts, Shoman Foundation, and French Cultural Center, all in Amman, Jordan; Novosibirsk State Art Museum, Russia; and National Art Museum of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Represented by the Ayyam Gallery, he had solo shows at the gallery’s spaces in the Dubai International Financial Center in 2011 and Damascus in 2011; as well as solo exhibitions at Stadsgalerij, Amersfoort, the Netherlands, in 2010; Station Museum’s-Hertogenbosch in Den Bosch, the Netherlands, in 2007. His work has been shown in group exhibitions at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, in 2012; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Qatar, in 2010; and in Utrecht, the Netherlands, in 2008 at the Centrum Beeldende Kunst Utrecht (CBKU) and the Centraal Museum’s New Salon.
