Muayad Muhsin was born April 19, 1964 in Babylon, Iraq. He recalls becoming fascinated by color and line and beginning to draw at the age of 4. As a child, Muhsin saw the road between home and school as a "heaven for studying my objects, the birds, the cats, our old couch, the school yard, and the dumpster place." Frequently advised by others who did not understand the arts, Muhsin was told to leave drawing because it "was no good and doesn’t earn you money and to look for something else which can be used to fill the stomach."
Muhsin received his art education at the Art Institute of Baghdad from 1979-1984, of which he says, "The days of study at the Institute were the golden years of my life as my talent grew despite my hard time living with national unrest and pressure on the mental freedoms from the bloody dictatorship and his regime." After finishing his studies at the Institute, Muhsin was drafted into the military and forced to fight in the Iran-Iraq War from 1984-1989 and the Kuwait War from 1990-1991. Muhsin says, "During my military service, the paint brush never touched my hand nor did the pen to draw."
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07.14.10 | Iraq's artists reflect pain, trauma of the war...
Iraq's artists are using their work to try to process the turmoil since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, and what they are producing shows a profound anger over their country's traumas and uncertainty over its future...
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08.05.07 | Artists Feel Painted Into a Corner in Baghdad
Muhsin, 42, became internationally known for a 2006 painting called "Picnic," which shows then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- considered a chief architect of the war in Iraq -- reading a report with his combat boots on an ancient gravestone.....
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06.12.06 | Modern Iraqi Art: Spotlight on Muayad Muhsin
The Iraqi surrealist painter, Muayad Muhsin, has painted a rather unflattering portrait of U.S. Defense Secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld. Muhsin’s surrealism is not informed by dreams and the unconsciousness mind, but by the horrors and barbarity of war...Read Full Article »
06.08.06 | Painting Captures U.S. Arrogance, Artist Says
The photo both enraged and inspired Muayad Muhsin: U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sitting back in an airplane seat, his feet — in heavy army boots — stretched out in front of him...Read Full Article »
