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Dalloul Art Foundation
DELAIR SHAKER DELAIR SHAKER

DELAIR SHAKER, Iraq (1971)

Bio

Born into an immensely artistic environment in 1971, Delair Shaker would grow to follow in his father’s footsteps in becoming a key player in Iraq’s creative world. Shaker’s father, Saad Shaker,...

Written by MYSA KAFIL-HUSSAIN


Born into an immensely artistic environment in 1971, Delair Shaker would grow to follow in his father’s footsteps in becoming a key player in Iraq’s creative world. Shaker’s father, Saad Shaker, a pioneering ceramicist, would surround his son with his work, encouraging a young Delair to spend his time in his ceramic studio in Baghdad.[1]As a result, Shaker became captivated by the complexities and possibilities of clay. 

In the late 1980s, he enrolled in Baghdad’s Institute of Fine Arts to study ceramic art and graduated in 1990, the year Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. The Gulf War and subsequent sanctions would make Iraq a tough place for Shaker to continue his promising career as an artist. Participating in many exhibitions, including the al-Wasiti Festival in 1992 (in which he won first prize), Shaker attempted to continue his work but in 1994 was offered a teaching position in Amman, Jordan, which his father encouraged him to accept. During his years in Jordan, he led a prestigious school’s art department, organized their annual art exhibitions, and personally began to experiment with mixed media, paintings and murals, moving beyond just ceramic art. In that time, he also set up his own experimental art studio in Amman.[2]Shaker’s work took on new life and was changing continuously, drifting in and out of ceramics, incorporating collage and with a range of colors, shapes and textures. He began exhibiting his work in Jordan, but in 2005, his father passed away in Iraq. He subsequently decided to move to the United States of America, but not before paying Baghdad one last visit. 

He arrived to a city in flames, witnessing museums destroyed and his father’s public works in pieces (Shaker 2010: p.73).[3]The instability following the 2003 invasion of Iraq had changed the face of Baghdad, and seeing his home in such pain had a profound effect on Shaker’s artwork. 

“In the following years, my compositions reflected Iraq as I saw it right before I left. I layered pieces of burnt, patterned cloth and mixed media materials…. I created my paintings as if watching the destruction of war through a telescope belonging to the destructor, a soldier peering through his rifle, while the paintings themselves documented the war on the receiving end, through shards of glass, sand, thin strips of metal, burnt materials, colour and clay.” Delair Shaker[4]

Two artworks in the Dalloul Art Foundation Collection, which were created in 2008, after Shaker moved to Phoenix, Arizona, clearly show the shift into a darker period. With an intensely red background in Crossroads, the intersecting black lines and central details exude chaos. The bright red section in the center acts as a target or wound, an effect Shaker uses in much of his work in that period, and one which critic Suhail Sami Nader considers a representation of a broken heart at the center of the body.[5]Bloody Hand, also painted in 2008, is a much bleaker insight into the physical impact of war, with the obscured hand emerging out of the darkness and into the light, but again with a central wound which leaves the struggling hand bloodied and fading away. Both Shattered Memories(2010) and Weeping Palms(2010), also in the collection, exude a distant sadness and a deep sense of loss – a “war emigreés narrative” as suggested by Aiste Parmasto.[6]Beyond the chaos of war and suddenly faced with the reality of a destroyed country in both memory and physical environment (here being the intricate details of the palm tree), these paintings show charred and disregarded remains, left to wither away. 

Several further artworks in the collection – Home 1(2012)Home 2(2012)Bridge of Hope(2012)Reconstruction(2013) and Untitled(2016) – show experiments in texture and composition, but mainly we see Shaker exploring the world of constructivism. Fusing industrialism and spatial and geometrical concepts, Shaker attempts to rebuild home, incorporating what Parmasto sees as an interplay of fragility and impermanence.[7]The range of textures, colours and materials show Shaker’s mind in full experimental mode, using nails, wood, fabric and much more to create a new world. However, Bridge of Hope seems to look closer to his new home (the US represented by what appears to be San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge) for a constructed vision into a hopeful future. One final artwork in the collection, Tahiya ila Abtal Gaza(2012), was perhaps painted after the Israeli bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip in late 2012, in which over 100 Palestinians were killed. Again using constructivist figures and a grid-like background, Shaker works against the assumed rigidity of constructivism and manifests an energetic, bloody scene in which he pays tribute to the strength of the champions of Gaza.

Throughout his youth in Baghdad and his later experiences of war, exile, loss, and renewal, Delair Shaker consistently reinvented his artwork, and continues to do so. His past and present compositions - informed by his experiences - hold heavy symbolic meanings, laced with memory, emotion and expressive imagination rooted in both tragedy and romanticism.[8]Shaker still lives and works in Arizona but also works from Jordan, where he has recently set up the experimental Enki Ceramic Atelier alongside a range of prolific Arab artists. Through this collective project and his personal work, he continues to explore and innovate, whether with mixed media on board or canvas, or with ceramics, an art form, which has fascinated the artist since he was a child, watching his father, work in Baghdad.  

Notes
Sources
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CV

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2014

New Home Structures, Paul Scott Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona, United States of America

2012

Home: A Virtual Reality, Karim Gallery, Amman, Jordan

2011

Sand Trails, Paul Scott Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona, United States of America

2010

Tales of Flames, Olney Room Gallery, Phoenix, Arizona, United States of America

2008

Traces of Time, Karim Gallery, Amman, Jordan

2006

The Journey, Private Hall, Amman, Jordan

Selected Group Exhibitions

2019

Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991-2011, MoMA PS1, New York, United States of America
Objects of Imagination: Contemporary Arab Ceramics, Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman, Jordan

2016

Harmony Between Generations(with Salim al-Dabbagh), Orfali Gallery, Amman, Jordan
Never Been Seen: Collective 2016, Art on 56thGallery, Beirut, Lebanon

2011

Art in Iraq Today, Beirut Exhibition Center, Beirut, Lebanon
Art in Iraq Today III, Meem Gallery, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Arizona Biennal 2011,Tucson Museum of Art, Arizona,United States of America

2010

The Contemporary Forum of Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, United States of America
Art Santa Fe: An International Contemporary Art Fair, Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States of America
A Chair and a Painting, Al Bareh Gallery, Bahrain

2009

Modernism and Iraq, Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, New York, United States of America
Beyond Boundaries, Karim Gallery, Amman, Jordan
Fall Reflections, Phoenix Centre for the Arts, Phoenix, Arizona,United States of America

2008

Gold Gate Exhibition, Art People Gallery, San Francisco, California, United States of America

2007

International Cultural Arts Network (ICAN ), Delaware, United States of America
Cab Calloway of the Arts, Museum Gallery, Wilmington, Delaware, United States of America
INNternationale House in Newark, Delaware,United States of America
Ramadan Art Festival, Lines Gallery, Amman, Jordan

2006

From Baghdad to New York: Part II of the Iraqi Phoenix Group, Pomegranate Gallery, New York, United States of America
Summer Group Show: Iraqi Art Today, Pomegranate Gallery, New York, United States of America

2005

Dialogue of Generations (with Muhammed Muhraddin), Orfali Gallery, Amman, Jordan
Homage to Shakir Hassan, Khair Eddin Palace, Museum of Tunisia, Tunis, Tunisia

2004

Homage to Shakir Hassan and Ismail Fattah, Athar Gallery, Baghdad, Iraq
Homage to Shakir Hassan, Orfali Gallery, Amman, Jordan
Peace Exhibition, Intercontinental Hotel, Amman
American Embassy Art Exhibition, Sheraton Hotel, Amman, Jordan

2003

Arab Ceramic Art, Al Nahda Association, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
The After War, Iraq Exhibition, Orfali Gallery, Amman, Jordan
UNESCO Art Exhibition, Amman, Jordan

2002

Dar al-Anda, Amman, Jordan

2001

Miniatures Exhibition, Orfali Gallery, Amman, Jordan
Exhibition for the Support of Iraqi Children, Orfali Gallery, Amman, Jordan

1997

Exhibition for a Group of Arab Artists, Orfali Gallery, Amman, Jordan

1993

Babel Art Festival, Baghdad, Iraq

1992

Al-Wasiti Festival, Baghdad, Iraq

1991

The Iraqi Art Association Exhibition, Royal Cultural Club, Amman, Jordan

1989

The Comprehensive Exhibition, Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad, Iraq

Awards

1992

First Prize, Al-Wasiti Festival, Baghdad, Iraq

Collections

Azzawi Collection, London, United Kingdom
Hussain Ali Harba Family Collection, Amman, Jordan
Ibrahimi Collection, Amman, Jordan
Ramzi & Saeda Dalloul Foundation (DAF), Beirut, Lebanon

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Exhibitions

DELAIR SHAKER Artwork

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