Mehdi Moutashar

Mehdi Moutashar was born in the city of Hilla, Iraq, in 1943. He graduated from Baghdad’s Academy of Fine Arts in 1966 and then attended L’École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1967. Negotiating the work of the Groupe de recherche d’art visual (GRAV), he began to experiment with geometrical abstraction and op art in relation to Islamic aesthetics. In 1973, he participated in a group exhibition at Contact Art Gallery in Beirut and in 1974, he participated in the Paris Biennial. He moved to Arles in the same year and joined L’École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris as a professor where he remained until 2008. His work has been exhibited in Amman, Arles, Baghdad, Berlin, Damascus, London, Mälmo, Tokyo, Tunis, Sharjah, Washington DC. In 1989, he held a solo show at the Institut du Monde Arabe. In 2018 he won the prestigious Jameel Prize at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Mehdi Moutashar continues to live and work in Arles. He is represented by Lawrie Shabibi Gallery in Dubai and Galerie Denise René in Paris.