{"id":6014,"date":"2026-08-25T12:34:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T11:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawaya24.com\/en\/?p=6014"},"modified":"2026-08-25T12:34:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T11:34:34","slug":"dia-al-azzawi-brings-recent-paintings-to-geneva-in-first-solo-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zawaya24.com\/en\/dia-al-azzawi-brings-recent-paintings-to-geneva-in-first-solo-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Dia al-Azzawi brings recent paintings to Geneva in first solo show"},"content":{"rendered":"

La Galerie 38 in Geneva is presenting Dia al-Azzawi\u2019s first solo exhibition at the gallery during the Nuit des Bains and Geneva Art Week. Titled Inner Worlds, Under Open Skies<\/em>, the exhibition brings together recent paintings shown publicly for the first time.<\/p>\n

The exhibition brings together two complementary bodies of work that examine the relationship between interior space and landscape, personal memory and the experience of the world. The works also reveal a more intimate and contemplative dimension of the Iraqi artist\u2019s practice.<\/p>\n

From domestic spaces to open landscapes<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Inner Worlds<\/em> series focuses on the artist\u2019s domestic environment. The home becomes a space of creation, memory and encounters, where objects, furniture, colours and memories form a personal visual language. Everyday scenes, human relationships and familiar spaces become subjects for contemplation, reflecting the role of intimacy and imagination in al-Azzawi\u2019s painting.<\/p>\n

In Under Open Skies<\/em>, the focus shifts towards gardens, light and landscapes. Artist gardens, including the Jardin Majorelle in Marrakech, craft traditions, agricultural landscapes and the mountains of Lebanon, where al-Azzawi regularly stays, inform works in which colour celebrates the living world.<\/p>\n

Nature, vegetation and architecture interact across compositions marked by artistic freedom. The landscape appears both as a physical space and as an inner projection, extending the exhibition\u2019s exploration of the relationship between external reality and personal experience.<\/p>\n

The title Inner Worlds, Under Open Skies<\/em> reflects this movement from the intimate to the open, from the home to the landscape and from individual memory to a wider human experience. Interior and exterior spaces become ways of exploring the relationship between memory, imagination and reality.<\/p>\n

A career rooted in modern Arab art<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Born in Baghdad in 1939, Dia al-Azzawi has developed an artistic career spanning more than six decades. His work holds a central place in the history of modern Arab art. Trained in Iraq during the 1960s, he contributed to the emergence of a new artistic modernity drawing on Mesopotamian and Islamic heritage as well as contemporary forms of abstraction.<\/p>\n

As a co-founder of the New Vision movement, al-Azzawi developed an approach to art that positioned the artist as both creator and critical witness to his time.<\/p>\n

He moved to London in 1976, where he continued his artistic career in exile. During this period, he developed the dafatir<\/em>, artist books inspired by the tradition of illuminated manuscripts. These works created spaces where painting, writing and memory could meet within a distinctive visual language.<\/p>\n

His practice also developed a sustained dialogue with Arabic poetry and calligraphy, bringing text and image together in complex compositions.<\/p>\n

The conflicts that have affected the Arab world, particularly the destruction of Iraq, later gave his work a strong political dimension. His large-scale compositions became both testimonies to historical violence and acts of artistic resistance.<\/p>\n

While memory remains central to his practice, Inner Worlds, Under Open Skies<\/em> highlights another aspect of his work. Colour takes on a strong expressive role through renewed attention to nature, poetry, everyday life and landscapes that continue to shape the artist\u2019s life and imagination.<\/p>\n

La Galerie 38 presents the exhibition as part of its commitment to major figures of Arab artistic modernity. The gallery seeks to promote artists whose work reflects the diversity and vitality of different artistic scenes while highlighting their contribution to the history of modern and contemporary art.<\/p>\n

The exhibition also places al-Azzawi\u2019s work within a wider dialogue with Swiss and international art scenes. By presenting one of the founding figures of Arab modernity, La Galerie 38 underlines its view that different narratives of modern art form part of an open and universal history of art.<\/p>\n

Al-Azzawi\u2019s work is held in the collections of international institutions including the British Museum, Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Biblioth\u00e8que nationale de France and the Institut du monde arabe in Paris, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., LACMA in Los Angeles, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, the Sharjah Art Foundation and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

La Galerie 38 in Geneva is presenting Dia al-Azzawi\u2019s first solo exhibition at the gallery…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6015,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5494,5492,5495,5496,5493],"class_list":["post-6014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-arab-modern-art","tag-dia-al-azzawi","tag-geneva-art-week","tag-inner-worlds-under-open-skies","tag-la-galerie-38"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawaya24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawaya24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawaya24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawaya24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawaya24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6014"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zawaya24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6016,"href":"https:\/\/zawaya24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6014\/revisions\/6016"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawaya24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawaya24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawaya24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawaya24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}