Walid Siti

Walid Siti (born 1952, Duhok, Iraqi Kurdistan) is a Kurdish painter and artist. He is currently based in London, United Kingdom.^[1]

Education and early life

He was born into a family of a Sunni Muslim background and had four brothers and a sister.^[2] His father was involved in the Kurdish revolutionary movement and often in prison.^[2] The father was the breadwinner of his family and as his was often absent, he and his siblings had to work after school.^[3] His artistic skills have already raised some awareness in primary school, but weren't met with appraisal by the family at the time.^[2] Nevertheless, his father supported his desire to study art.^[2] He studied art at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad from which he graduated in 1976.^[1] He then travelled to Yugoslavia (present day Slovenia) and where he studied graphic art^[4] between 1977 and 1982 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, from where he obtained a MSc.^[1] In 1984 he moved on to London due to the difficult situation in Baathist Iraq.^[4][2]

Artistic career

He has developed a proficiency in several artistic fields like painting, printing and installations.^[4] Initially trained in artistic prints his artwork is now also including sketches and paintings.^[2] In his artistic artwork he lets himself get inspired by his cultural heritage of his homeland.^[5]

Exhibitions

• 1987, Three Kurdish Artists, Kufa Gallery, London
• 1994, Timescapes, curated by Rose Issa, Leighton House Museum, London
• 2008, Land on Fire, curated by Rose Issa, Leighton House Museum, London
• 2011, The River Zei, Rose Issa Projects, London.
• 2012, Alienation, Barjeel Art Foundation, Saudi Arabia^[6]
• 2013, In Dialogue with Modhir Ahmed, Abdulrahim Sharif and Rashid bin Khalifa Al Khalifa at the Art Centre, Bahrain.^[7]
• 2017, The Black Tower, Zilberman Gallery, Berlin^[8]

Further reading

Walid Siti, Kehrer Verlag.^[9]