Personal

Yousif Naser, Painter
Born: Amara, Iraq 18 March 1952
Address: 213 Kestrel House, Gurnell Grove, London W13 0AD
Tel: 0208 810 1987
Email: yousifark@yahoo.co.uk

Qualifications and Training

1979 BA in Painting, Academy of Fine Arts, Baghdad, Iraq
1987 Graphics training, International Graphics Workshop, Dresden, Germany
1994 Multimedia studies, London Polytechnic, London, England
2006 MA in Arts and Theory, Middlesex University, London, England

Solo Exhibitions

1977 Baghdad, Iraq
1981 Beirut, Lebanon
1989 Oslo, Norway
1996 London, England
1997 Brussels, Belgium
1998, 1999, 2002 London, England
2004 Damascus, Syria
2006 London, England
2008 La Rochelle , France

Group Exhibitions

1977 – Present:
Participated in several annual group exhibitions in varying countries around Europe, Asia, Middle East, and North Africa.
Highlights:
Arab Artist Union Exhibition, Nicosia, Cyprus 1986
Dresden International Graphics Workshop, Dresden, Germany 1988
The Norwegian Print Triennale, Friedrichstaat, Norway 1989
Under Different Sky, Copenhagen, Denmark 1996
Black Rain, Reflections of War, Simunye Gallery, Sheffield, UK 2003
Black Rain, Reflections of War, Charnwood Museum, Loughborough, UK 2004

Undertakings & Projects

Iraqi Artists Union:
Established the Iraqi Artists Union (IAU) in 1993 in London. This was a union for Iraqi artists in exile living and working in the UK. The IAU organised exhibitions, cultural events such as workshops, lectures, and live music performances promoting the Iraqi art movement and culture. It had a community of over 60 members.

Ark:
Founded and currently runs the Ark Studio Gallery in West London in 1997. This is a voluntary art venue designed to provide a platform for the making and showing of innovative and issue based art forms. It also promotes a broad spectrum of art forms to include practitioners such as performers, musicians, photographers, film makers, designers, writers and poets as well as fine artists. Until today the Ark has facilitated and organised hundreds of activities of differing works, and now cooperatively organises three events per week with the local council.
The Ark is also the studio for Yousif Naser.

Black Rain:
Black Rain is an ongoing art undertaking which began as a painting project by Yousif Naser during the build up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It quickly acquired much momentum and generated much local media coverage. Although the central theme of the project remains in paintings, drawings, and collages by Yousif Naser, many avenues in music, film and literary arts have built up around it by other artists.
A 35 minute documentary film has been produced about Yousif and the Black Rain project.