Hanaa Malallah

Hanaa Malallah was born in Theeqar, Iraq in 1958. She moved to Baghdad with her family when she was aged five years.[2] Growing up in Baghdad, she experienced the multiple conflicts and revolutions that ravaged her country. These experiences had a major influence on her work.[3]

She received a Diploma in Graphic Art from the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad where she studied with Shakir Hassan Al Said, obtained a BA in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad (1988), an MA in painting (2000) and a PhD in the philosophy of painting from the University of Baghdad (2001) with her thesis entitled, Logic Order in Ancient Mesopotamian Painting. She also holds a post-graduate certificate in Islamic and Modern Art from School of Oriental and African Studies, London University.[4] She has taught at the Institute of Fine Arts and the University of Fine Arts in Baghdad and holds a fellowship at the Chelsea College of Arts.[1][5]

She is part of the so-called Eighties Generation as the group of Iraqi artists active during the 1980s are known. This group drew inspiration from the Archeological Museum, as Mallalah herself acknowledges in her essay, "Consciousness of Isolation," published in 2001.[6]

As a female artist and professor of art, working in Iraq in the 70s and 80s, she received a number of threats against her life. For this reason, she felt that she had no choice but to leave Iraq and accept a new life outside her native land.[7] In 2006, she left Iraq to take up a fellowship in Paris.[8] She ultimately settled in London from 2007. However, she has said that she feels spiritually depleted living outside Iraq.[7]

In 2012, she held a fellowship at the Chelsea College of Arts in London.[9]

Much of her work deals with themes around the "chaos of war" which she had experienced in Iraq.[10][8] In particular, her work explores the search for identity in the aftermath of war, the destruction of cultural materials and the isolation of artists.[10]

Beginning in the 1970s, while still in Iraq, Malallah developed a technique which she called the ruins technique. Born out of the scarcity of art materials in war-ravaged Iraq, she turned to items that were readily available in her immediate surroundings, such as burnt paper, torn cloth, barbed wire, splintered wood and bullets.[10][11] In an interview, the artist explains the philosophy behind the ruins technique:

This technique refers both to ancient and contemporary Iraq. On the one hand, it relates to the damage that objects undergo when they are destroyed – something that I am familiar with, having seen destruction of buildings, objects and relics up close. On the other hand, the Ruins Technique allows me a unique way to express my sensitive reading of shape and colour which I gained from my studies and writings on Ancient Mesopotamia... With this method I am not creating an image of ruins, but I am re-creating the process by which a material becomes a ruin.[12]

Her work has been described as reminiscent of Nouveau réalisme.[13]

Her work is represented in the British Museum's permanent collection and is also included in the collections of Jordan's Museum of Fine Arts in Amman, the Centre for Modern Art in Baghdad, the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha and the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharja.[1][5][4]

Malallah received a prize awarded by the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization.[4]

• Iraqi art
• Islamic art
• List of Iraqi artists
• List of Iraqi women artists

• Shabout, N. (2014). Robinson, Denise (ed.). Ghosts of Futures Past: Iraqi Culture in a State of Suspension. School of Fine Arts, Cyprus University, 23–25 November.CS1 maint: location (link)
• Ruba Asfahani, Interview With Hanaa Malallah: Iraq’s Pioneering Female Artist 28 November 2016