Iraqi refugee Hashim Hannoon savours success as a Canadian artist - Media Release

Abstract expressionist Hashim Hannoon’s landscapes depicting life in Canada are featured through May 26 in a solo exhibition entitled “Living Colour” at Mayberry Fine Art Winnipeg, where the artist got his Canadian start.

The 15 large-scale works, ranging in price from $3,400 to $6,300, can be viewed online at http://www.mayberryfineart.com/exhibit/519

“My art is like music. When you listen, the harmony in the music is like colours in my work. Colour reflects my dreams for people to live in peace… Canada is a good country for art and for artists.” – Hashim Hannoon

My Secret Place, 2017, acrylic 36” x 36”

Public invited to meet the artist

Where: Mayberry Fine Art, 212 McDermot Ave. in the Exchange District

When: 5 p.m. - 9 p.m. Friday, May 5 and 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, May 6

Hashim Hannoon – to Canada from Iraq via Jordan in search of peace and the realization of dreams

• Hannoon, born in 1957, grew up in Basrah in southern Iraq in a family of 12 children

• He graduated from Institute of Fine Art in Baghdad and became an accomplished artist with works held in both public institutions and private collections

• His career as an artist and art teacher for children was interrupted by the Iran- Iraq war (1980-88). He served as a soldier on the front lines for six years. Two of his brothers, also conscripted into the army, were killed in the line of duty

• During those six long years, Hannoon neither painted nor read nor wrote. The sole activities for a soldier in northern Iraq, he said, were keeping warm and killing

• After the war, and with the ensuing Persian Gulf War (1990-91), Hannoon’s paintings from this period reflect the gloom and calamity of war. Surrounded by widows and orphans in his homeland, he was unable to escape the feeling of death

• In the late 1990s, his work began to take on a brighter aura, reflecting the innocence of children and their dreams of peace and a better life; still the bright colours hid the deep pain the children felt due to war and hunger

• Doves, a symbol of peace, are often depicted in his paintings

• Hannoon fled Iraq for Amman, Jordan, with his wife and two young children in 1998. One million other Iraqis did the same, although Hannoon’s siblings and parents remained in their homeland.

• In Jordan, he enjoyed success as an artist, his work featured in several exhibitions there and in Saudi Arabia. Over the years, his work has been exhibited in many countries including Turkey, Kuwait, Yemen, Italy, and Egypt

• Unable to live in Jordan indefinitely, however, and hoping to provide a brighter future for his children, Hannoon applied to the United Nations as an “artistic refugee” asking to come to Canada. He and his family arrived on a frigid December day in 2008

• Hannoon’s goal was to make his work famous in Canada and to work for the future of his children and others to live in peace

• Initially the family settled in Winnipeg. When the oldest child was accepted to study at university in B.C., they relocated to that province

Mayberrys intrigued by freshness, quality of artist’s work

• In 2009, Hannoon arrived unannounced at Mayberry Fine Art, paintings under his arm and holding a high-quality art book – a retrospective of his work published in Jordan

• He spoke almost no English

• Although the gallery rarely takes on an artist completely un-established in Canada, the Mayberrys recognized the uniqueness and quality of the charming artist’s work

• In short order, gallery clients snapped up three of Hannoon’s paintings

• With its middle-eastern feel, his work is without parallel in Canada

• Mayberry Fine Art has represented Hannoon ever since and exhibited his work at their galleries in Toronto and Winnipeg

• Hannoon’s work is also shown in galleries in B.C.