BASSAM AL-SABAH USES DIGITAL ANIMATION, PAINTING, SCULPTURE AND TEXTILES TO CONVEY INTRICATE VISIONS OF WAR, RESISTANCE AND PERSEVERANCE. HIS WORK EXPLORES THEMES SUCH AS DISPLACEMENT, NOSTALGIA AND PERSONAL MYTHOLOGY THROUGH REFERENCING JAPANESE ANIME CARTOONS, WHICH WERE DUBBED INTO ARABIC AND BROADCAST THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST – WHERE BASSAM SPENT HIS CHILDHOOD – FROM THE 1980S TO THE PRESENT DAY. MANY OF THESE TV PROGRAMMES FEATURED IMAGERY OF REVOLUTION, WAR AND EXILE, AND THEREFORE HAVE A HEIGHTENED POLITICAL MEANING WITHIN HIS PRACTICE.
ARTIST BIO
Bassam Al-Sabah lives and works in Belfast and Dublin. He completed a BA in Visual Art Practice from Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (2016) and was awarded the Temple Bar Gallery + Studios Graduate Residency Award (2018-2019) and the RHA Graduate Studio Award (2016-2017). Recent solo exhibitions include Dissolving Beyond The Worm Moon, Solstice Arts Centre, Navan (2019); Illusions of Love Dyed by Sunset, The LAB, Dublin (2018); and The dust carried me into the watchful summer, Eight Gallery, Dublin (2017). Recent group exhibitions include For Refusal, Transmediale, Berlin (2021), and A Fiction Close To Reality, IMMA, Dublin (2019).
Reaching your wandering to my eye, 2023, Bassam Al-Sabah, 22.5cm (h) x 40cm (w), C-Type Fuji Pearl
Wandering, Wandering With a Sun on My Back, Bassam Al-Sabah, 2018, Video HD, 16:40. Film still
AS SUCCESSIVE GENERATIONS OF ARABS HAVE GROWN UP WITH THESE ANIME SERIES, BASSAM’S WORKS BOTH CONNECT WITH A FEELING OF COLLECTIVE NOSTALGIA AND AMALGAMATE NARRATIVES WHERE FACT AND FICTION, HISTORICAL TRAUMA, AND QUEER POSSIBILITY CAN INTERSECT.
An installation shot of work A Fiction Close to Reality, Bassam Al-Sabah, IMMA, 2019
An installation shot of the work Dissolving Beyond The Worm Moon, Bassam Al-Sabah, Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, Co. Meath, Ireland, Sep 2019
My mind yields easily, To the unrelenting pressure of the sun, 2021, Bassam Al-Sabah, 40 x 50cm, archival print on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag
