Ali Eyal, an artist from Iraq, vividly recalls being nine years old and peering out at Baghdad’s skyline from a Ferris wheel. His mother urged him to remember that scene, aware that the city’s future was uncertain. In 2003, just days after this moment, the United States and its allies commenced their invasion of Iraq, with airstrikes marking the start of a prolonged conflict.
“I felt like a child again this morning watching TV,” Eyal shared with writer Renée Reizman last week, shortly after the US and Israel initiated their assault on Iran, igniting widespread destruction and fear throughout the Gulf region. Eyal, now based in Los Angeles and participating in this year’s Whitney Biennial with both a painting and a series of drawings, discusses how the childhood war, his father’s disappearance, and his art, which captures surreal landscapes of loss and ruin, continue to shape his life.
In this issue, we also pay tribute to Thaddeus Mosley, the self-taught sculptor who passed away last Friday at 99. Aaron Short honors Mosley’s mastery of wood, likening it to the spontaneous energy of jazz, captured in his polished and carved sculptures.
“I was nine years old, and I felt like I lost that childhood,” Eyal confided to Hyperallergic, reflecting on the impact of the US-led war in Iraq, the mystery surrounding his father’s absence, and the art he creates as a means of emotional processing.
