This article appeared in Being Serwan Baran Issue #69 dedicated to tackling the journey of Serwan Baran, an Iraqi artist who transforms the brutal realities of war and human suffering into visual narratives. Born in Baghdad in 1968 and shaped by his experiences as a soldier, Baran’s work is rich with authenticity and emotional depth. His art reveals a complex psyche and a deep connection to the human experience. Through dark, brooding canvases, Baran explores themes of pain, resilience, and hope, urging viewers to confront uncomfortable truths while embracing our shared humanity.
Issue #69 ‘Being Serwan Baran’
Serwan Baran continues to visit Iraq but has grown disheartened with his country’s transformation and what he deems to be a regressing artistic community. Since his permanent departure in 2003, his work has taken on a more political tone because of his ability to express himself more freely outside of Iraq. Baran has been significantly shaped by his experiences living in Beirut, particularly following the 2020 blast. Being so close to the centre, and then witnessing the coming together of the Lebanese youth cleaning the streets, culminated in testimonial works like Beirut Clean-Up and 30 Seconds Out of Time, the latter a reflection on the fate of the ten firefighters who disappeared in the port as the blast occurred. During this time, Baran was also personally impacted by the Lebanese economic crisis and the pandemic, which prompted a series of deeply delicate and thought-provoking works centred on destruction and isolation. He discusses in depth his thought process on how those ideas came to be and gives us insight into more recent pieces focused on the war in Gaza and modern technological warfare.
How do you feel about your experiences in Iraq now?
Iraq has changed a lot. The Baghdad I knew is different now, with many educated people fleeing and those remaining struggling to live. Entering the city is a mess. The people have changed. Baghdad was beautiful, not in its streets, but in its people.
I always say that the big impact that happened to Baghdad, is that the countryside migrated to the city. However, I still visit Iraq occasionally, and I just came back from a trip with friends.
How has the art scene in Iraq developed since you left?
It’s a disaster. All the good artists left. There are no real committees to choose the works. We used to participate in the exhibitions, and only a select few were accepted. When one of our works got into the museum we used to go outside and dance in the streets. It was an accomplishment. And now anyone can be exhibited.
Iraqi artists, living in Iraq, always avoid politics in their work. It is only the artists who leave Iraq that can tackle political issues in their work. After 2003 all my work became political. I have a passion for art, and art is not a profession to me. Art is a purpose to me. If I don’t have a cause or purpose, I don’t draw.
Where is your favourite place to be?
Beirut, truthfully, for security reasons. The most important thing in Beirut is freedom of expression. Beirut supports each person who visits. You don’t feel like a stranger. The first day you enter this city, a week later, they consider you a citizen of the country. This breaks all the barriers, and you feel that you can start living in your country.
What was your experience in the Beirut Port explosion of August 2020?
I was in Beirut at the time, and I was very close to the blast. I was in Dora with Saleh Barakat. The next day I went back to see what happened. I needed to see something to be able to express myself, but the destruction and ruin did not move me to draw. The city is very beautiful, and it gave me a lot, so I didn’t want to ruin that. I saw something much better. I saw young people cleaning the city. They had their own sandwiches, and they were cleaning as if they were cleaning their own houses. Seeing them, I learnt the first lesson in the love of a nation. When our city [Baghdad] was destroyed, the people of the city did not clean it. On the contrary, when our city fell, they burned state offices and the state’s computers. Coming from a country where the people stole and destroyed the city to a country where the people are actively trying to put it back together, my whole system was distorted. So, I decided to start a project of twenty works about the people cleaning the city of Beirut.
I also came across another important issue. Prior to the explosion, ten firefighters entered a place where they knew they would die. The ten firemen disappeared, so I imagined a story in my head. The project is called 30 Seconds Out of Time; out of time because no one knows what happened. How these firefighters reached the warehouse, the conversation between them, and how they disappeared. I wanted to honour them, so I created twenty-eight works. I exhibited these paintings at Errm Art Gallery in Riyadh.
Can you walk us through the COVID-19 series?
I created a series on COVID-19 about isolation. Most of the work I did during the pandemic was my own self-portrait. I sat on the floor with books; I couldn’t clean my house, and I felt like I couldn’t live in the place at all, so I used to take a selfie, and place a mirror and draw myself. I took a selfie of myself and drew how I changed. I also worked on how people wore masks, how the shapes of their faces changed.
We were also living in chaos, during the economic crisis. What can one draw from the economic crisis? How can I express myself. I looked at the economic crises in the world that started with the pandemic, first. Secondly, I looked at the locust attacks. The locusts used to attack the crops and the agricultural season would end, leaving people without food. This insect has created economic crises for centuries, so I linked it to the human being, the one who ate everything. I worked on a series of locusts that wore army colours. I was fascinated by the singularity that one insect could eat everything. There is a saying in Arabic: the locusts eat the green and the dry. I felt that we had an invasion of locusts but in the form of humans.
180 x 200 cm.
How did the Gaza war impact your work?
The Gaza Strip, as usual, is a war zone. I can’t draw a building that is being bombed and the suffering people. These are all things I have done. I didn’t want to draw a documentary-type photograph. Instead, I looked at how the television channels show people from America, from the Arab world, from the United Kingdom, protesting in the name of Palestine. There is a contradiction in this matter. The Arab League, and some countries, made a big speech; however, they did not do anything to stop Israel. This contradiction reminded me of a similar work I had done in the past: the Sad Clowns in 2012. Clowns make people happy, but they are sad. I was thinking to myself and saw a great opportunity to mock the politicians who are silent. The ones I drew now in 2023 were smiling, strong, with an evil smile. They are wearing well-decorated suits, and they have microphones in front of them. I studied body language and the language of the fingers and the hand. Some of the movements are pre-determined, some are false promises, and some are support and power. I added the trumpets. I created a whole exhibition, and I called it Al-Bouaqeen, which in Arabic means two words: either trumpeters or screamers and liars. In Arabic, the word is the liar, the thief, or the musician.
Who has acquired your works?
My works are in collections of the Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation, the Ibrahimi Foundation, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar, and the Maghreb Museum. I also work with galleries in New York and Geneva.
What are you working on in 2024?
This year, I am working on a new project: the Electronic War and how people are prisoners of technology. Today, if someone takes a person’s mobile or computer, they get lost. So, we are all prisoners of this. Second, I am a prisoner of a spy machine that knows me anywhere I am, and it can determine my location anywhere I am. Privacy has gone from us, but we are addicted to technology. Today, the drones are doing everything. A young person can hack the Pentagon and change the whole system. I started working on this world, the new world, the world of computers, the world of social media, which manipulates people’s minds, and overthrows governments. This project will be exhibited in 2025 at the Saleh Barakat Gallery.
Explore related articles on Serwan Baran’s art and career.
Being Serwan Baran: The Art of War: The Political Expression in Exile Part I
Being Serwan Baran: The Art of War: The Political Expression in Exile Part II