"Rhythms of Mesopotamia" Exhibition by Firyal Al Adhamy inaugurates

Manama, Mar. 26 (BNA): Under the patronage of Shaikha Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa, President of the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities (BACA), Albareh Art Gallery will inaugurate the Iraqi British artist Firyal Al Adhamy’s solo exhibition. The exhibition under the theme “Rhythms of Mesopotamia” will start on April 3. Firyal Al Adhami is an Iraqi British artist born in Baghdad who lives in Bahrain. Her work is inspired by Iraq’s rich history, and by a desire to document and preserve this richness for future generations. This is Al Adhamy’s second solo show at Albareh. The first, Postcards from Mesopotamia in 2006, was an expression of Al Adhamy’s sadness and outrage over the plundering of Iraqi artefacts following the US invasion of her homeland. In her latest exhibition, Rhythms of Mesopotamia, Al Adhamy revisits her first show, both in concept and in form, documenting how both have grown and changed in that time. Al Adhamy describes a visit to an exhibition, I am Ashurbanipal, held at the British Museum in 2018. As she walked through the exhibits, she was overwhelmed by a sense of loss over having to view the artefacts of her Iraqi heritage in a country far away from her own. Upon reflection, that feeling was replaced by relief that the same Iraqi artefacts are safe and have been preserved for posterity, albeit in a foreign land. This process of reflection inspired her to revisit her 2006 exhibition, Postcards from Mesopotamia, reworking the pieces that she had produced then, using them as the basis for the creation of new works derived from the older ones, this time from a more mature, more reflective and resigned vantage point. Retaining the older images as a base, Al Adhamy refreshes the colours, embellishes the surfaces with gold leaf and texture, and layers new concepts on the old in an attempt to start the healing process of the pain experienced over the loss of her cultural symbols. Since 1988, she has contributed to a significant number of group exhibitions on both regional and international levels. She has also had ten solo exhibitions. Her work features in public collections such those of the British Museum, the Arab British Chamber of Commerce (London, UK), the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (Washington DC, USA), the National Gallery of Fine Arts (Amman, Jordan), Bait Al-Qur’an (Bahrain), and the Jeddah International Airport (Saudi Arabia), as well as numerous private collections.