Oil Painting is a reproduction of a 1912 landscape by the Iraqi pioneer artist Abdul-Kader Al-Rassam, depicting the Tigris River in Baghdad before the discovery of oil—at a time when the river still marked the boundary between the Shi’a and Sunni sides of the city.
The printed image is mounted on a wooden panel and sealed beneath a transparent acrylic sheet coated with a thick layer of black grease oil. Viewers are invited to use gloves and tools to intervene directly, leaving marks that constantly alter the painting.
This participatory gesture recalls Operation Desert Storm (1991), when burning oil fields in southern Iraq sent dense black smoke across the region. In Baghdad, the sky darkened and oily black rain fell on the city, staining buildings and reshaping daily life. The work echoes this transformation—how an image, a memory, or a landscape can be obscured, overwritten, and continually redefined by the impacts of war.
Interactive installation & details
Original painting – 1912 by Iraqi pioneer painter
Abdul-Kader Al-Rassam
Details:
- Interactive painting
- Large-scale printed image
- Dim.: 205 x 273 cm
- Acrylic sheet
- Grease oil
- Rubber spatula
- Black pigment
- Wooden panels
- Gloves