Kurdish Visionary, Tahir Fatah: Painting in metaphors is like the Kurdish language

Sheri Laizer, California | Exclusive to iKurd.net

‘‘In my work I present images that can speak for themselves, that are metaphoric and that work on several levels to evoke a response in the viewer, to have him or her reflect on their deeper sense, to enter the painting like a door to another world.”

Slêmanî-born Tahir Fatah has a long and illustrious career behind him in the United States living from his art work following retirement from the long hours of labour in California’s top film studios including Universal and Disney where he painted sets used on some of the best known shows1.

Maintaining a keen focus on Kurdistan in relation to international developments Tahir’s latest canvasses have moved away from the abstract forms of previous periods to rich irony and visual metaphor.

Speaking by Skype, Tahir explained his symbolism to me: in one of his latest canvasses, a youthful Mulla Mustafa Barzani sits astride a pale horse that leaves behind a dark past – that of the background with the Islamic crescent in the sky, progressing to the Kurdish destiny of nationhood and the light of future history. The four vivid red poppies the mythic hero holds represent the four parts of Kurdistan. Above him in the sky, the first lines of the Kurdish national anthem, Ey Raqib, are lettered.

In another painting of this most recent period, Tahir explains how he was roused by anger over the Jihadist forces assaulting the region to put his feelings down in paint. In a reference to classical art, Venus can no longer see her beauty in the mirror: instead a bestial female, her head encased in a green hijab with animal ears protruding above, blocks the celestial vision with ugliness and corruption. In another work, the symbol of victory has lost a wing and the light of the sun is blocked by the emblem of the Turkish flag in a swirl of surrounding darkness. The ancient world of noble philosophy and classical beauty is being dismembered. In yet another vivid rendition of Tahir’s intellectual vision, the cupids, or angels, have grown old. Obama plucks the string of his lyre. Again, the Turkish emblem replaces the light of the sun.

Earlier paintings from the period of the 1991 Kurdish uprising and mass exodus are soon to be pledged to the new museum being constructed in Kurdistan, a gift from the painter. But like other hardworking artists, the painter must sell his work to survive. Living in the desert this is not so easy. Tahir left Los Angeles for the quiet beauty of the desert south towards Palm Springs but found himself alone and cut off. Painting day and night, often till after midnight, his external environment sometimes feels like a place of lonely exile. 2His planned visit home to Kurdistan to visit the extended family still living there has been delayed time and again by the economic crisis hitting the United States.

“People aren’t buying art like before, even the wealthy and every amateur that starts painting fruit or a portrait of their pet thinks himself an artist or applies paint to paper as a form of therapy. It’s mostly superficial. In the Kurdish language we speak in images, we use symbols, but here in the US they don’t understand what we are saying. In my work I present images that can speak for themselves, that are metaphoric and that work on several levels to evoke a response in the viewer, to have him or her reflect on their deeper sense, to enter the painting like a door to another world.

“The abuse of religion is killing nature, distorting human life, bringing darkness and destruction, not light. This is why I use the symbol of the crescent moon in a sky where its light is supressed. I use colour to represent feeling. There is still hope of greater light in these new paintings if we can move away from the darkness. I paint my way forward through the questions the paintings ask – but also try to answer.

The painting of a younger Mustafa Barzani is about rebirth – the new day breaking through the black boundary to reach the dreams of an open horizon.”

Original painting is offered for sale to any iKurd reader unable to travel to California to see the artist’s work for themselves. Contact iKurd.

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