Rostam Aziz
My art works dates back to the beginning of my childhood, especially when I was a primary school student, I had a huge interest and I was absorbed in drawing, I was drawing nature, I was continuously drawing when I was at school, but there was a difference between drawing at home and at school, we were mostly assigned to draw pictures of Iraq- Iran battle when we were at school, and it was a stipulation to draw pictures of Iraq's victory in it, then it was allowed to be exhibited at the exhibition.
In addition to drawing, I had another interest, and it was creating toys, I was one of those children who was deprived from the toys which were sold at the market, then I had not choice, I started to collect materials from my surrounding to make these toys, I made toys that I loved, such as cars and some folklore games, where I managed to make them for myself and my friends and I enjoyed from its making.
At the secondary school, I had interest for drawing, but in a way that the pictures can close me to reality, sometimes I was drawing pictures of singers and my surrounding individuals which were mostly portraits and colors were rarely used in it, in that period I had a strong desire and interest for drawing, which later influenced me to enroll at the Fine Art Institute.
I began learning drawing and painting in an academic method at the institute, I learned how to work on the materials, I mainly tried to learn the techniques of painting and drawing and getting more knowledge about the materials, the subjects of my painting and drawing were landscapes, portraits and people's daily life, I was constantly participating the festivals and activities inside the institute.
Then my later stage was the College of Arts, at the college the things were different, there were more materials available at our disposal, I could avail from them and I change my art style in terms of techniques , the materials such as Plate , Canvas and Board, where I was mainly worked on it with knife and roller, my working process were continued in this manner until I reached Master Degree, there were some political events that I have passed through such as the wars that Saddam Imposed on the Kurds, these events have always existed in my works.
In my perspective, drawing and painting is not only a process of filling the surface of a tableau that is at my disposal, or only enjoyment, I have always had my own concept for my works, at the beginning stages of my works , my main subjects were the political events and calamities that happened to the Kurds, for instance mass exodus especially following the destruction of the whole villages of Kurdistan and their people were settled in concentrations camps, and this lead to the annihilation of the cultures that existed in those villages and rural communities, and this was due to urbanizing people in the cities and camps, you van feel a kind of destabilization in the works, and this attributes to the individual division between the village and the city, these works can be seen in a figurative style and mainly implemented in an acrylic style.
In another stage, the women become an essential element of my works, which I mean the element that is seen by the spectator is women, the women were my concept of working at that stage and this is related to the women issue in the Kurdish society , especially in terms of freedom, where I personally women have become a victim of the social norms and traditions and were unable to practice their personal life, sometimes breaching this norms and traditions resulted in the women's death, for instance if a woman does not marry it means she does not have the right to enjoy making love and having sexual intercourses and they should be deprived from it, and any approach to get close to the men is regarded as a breach and violation of this social norms and then regarded as prostitutes and immoral and some times faced killing, personally I see lots of single girls and they can not have an relationships with a man.
The woman should live within the frame of the family if she is not married, in a sense the girls in the Kurdish society cannot have her own house and live alone, she is not allowed to live outside of her family unless she is married, woman's freedom is limited and cannot express on herself, even the government has not made any steps to change this social norms and traditions, thus these all have influence on my works , in some of my works the women have an essential form and appeared in figurative forms, but this always has influence on the techniques even on choosing the materials of my works, therefore; putting colors and drawing sketches , the movement of the figures and the movement of the brushes were all under the influence of the subject. In all these stages the color was one of the components where I could express it in a free and good way.
Most of the time I had problem with the outside lines of then I could not stick to them, that's I have always destroyed them, for instance when I was drawing someone's portrait I was mixing the lines I did not like to distinguish the things by a line. In the same time I felt that strong line that existed between our people especially man and woman or the border between the countries of this area even between the cities this was felt. Therefore; sometimes I destroyed the borders colors and my forms and created a kind of mixing.
In my latest works, I have a project working with the calligraphers, the materials that are used by them especially I use the wood that is under the textile this work is still underway, I want my Doctorate to be on that, because this holds beautiful thought lines and a gorgeous practical works.
