Rafa Nasiri
Iraq, b.1940 - 2013
An artist with a varied and rich artistic background, Rafa al-Nasiri began his art training at the Art Academy in Baghdad graduating in 1959 after which he went to Beijing where he specialised in graphic art (1959-1961). He continued his printmaking in Lisbon where he stayed from 1967 to 1969. One of the first Arab artists to deal with Arabic calligraphy as a means of asserting one’s artistic identity, al-Nasiri’s letters and calligraphic signs were always exploited for their graphic attributes, developing from the legible to the pure abstract.
