Iraqi artist Mehdi Moutashar discusses his practice with Art Jameel’s Head of Exhibitions, Nora Razian as part of the Jameel’s ‘Conversations on Practice’ series of artist-led presentations. This talk coincides with Jameel Prize 5 exhibition which features his joint winning work ‘Deux carrés dont un encadré’ (Two squares, one of them framed).

Exhibition organised by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in partnership with Art Jameel and will be running at Jameel Arts Centre till September 15

Mehdi Moutashar lives and works in Arles, France. He graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad, Iraq in1966 and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France in 1970. He was Professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, from 1974-2008. Moutashar’s art lies at the confluence of two artistic traditions, the western heritage of geometric abstraction and the Islamic aesthetic tradition of geometrical order and lines. His art is a radical, geometrical abstraction with figures that are never enclosed inside the limits of a contour but open, fragmentary and constantly shifting. His solo exhibitions are numerous but more recently include: Ligne, couleur 1968-1978, Galerie Orsay, Paris, France (2017); Albareh Gallery and The National Theatre of Bahrain, Bahrain (2017); Galerie Victor Sfez, Paris, France (2016); Galerie AL/MA, Montpellier, France, (2016 and 2012); Galerie Le Petit Temple, Lasalle, France (2014); Galerie Linde Hollinger,