Saad A l i

Saad Ali paints in oil on wooden panels, doors, or frames. These “Doors of Hope”, a symbol in Arabic for the entrance to Paradise, invite the on-looker into a paradise of harmony and love. The figures in rich reds and ochre yellows, man and woman, lovers entwined together, are tattoed with henna linear patterns or flowers and leaves from the garden of paradise, and are frequently surrounded by decorated frames that intensify their allure.

Women in mirror, oil on panel, 67 x 79 cm

Saadi Ali was born in Iraq in 1953 and started painting at a very early age. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad and in the studio of Iraqi artist Hashem al-Wardi. Like many contemporary Iraqi artists he was influenced by the Baghdad school of modern art founded by Jewad Salim which brought European influences to the heritage of Iraqi art. Ali showed his work in many exhibitions in Baghdad, some are in the public collection of the Baghdad Gulbenkian gallery of modern art.

In the mid-seventies he left Iraq for Italy. Between 1977 and 1981 he studied at the Academy of Fine

Arts in Perugia and Florence and worked under Italian painter Fero at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. In 1985 he went to live in Utrecht in the Netherlands. One of his murals, six metres long, decorates a square in The Hague. He now lives and works from his studio in the south of France.

Saadi Ali has held many solo exhibitions since his first in Baghdad in 1976 – in Florence, Utrecht, Brussels, London, Copenhagen and The Hague, and has participated in group exhibitions in Baghdad, Beirut, Aden, Florence, Venice, Rome, Paris, Damascus, Utrecht, Brussels, Amsterdam and Copenhagen. He has also taken part in international exhibitions, in Moscow (1989), in Utrecht (1993), in Maastricht (1994) and Amsterdam (1995).

Cara mia, oil on panel, 60 x 48 cm Front cover: Adam and Eve on the flying carpet, oil on panel, 110 x 130 cm