Firyal Al-Adhamy


Firyal Al-Adhamy is a Bahrain-based British Iraqi artist.

Life and career

Born in Baghdad in 1950, she began her artistic endeavours as a hobby, crafting jewellery, costumes, textiles and woodwork, all inspired by Iraq's ancient cultural history. Later, when some of her jewellery was acquired by museums, she began to see her work as a potential career.
Although she graduated from the University of Baghdad, she did not study arts and is a self-taught artist.
Her aim is to faithfully reproduce ancient objects, thereby preserving Iraq's heritage. Firyal's latest collection, Postcards from Mesopotamia, is inspired by her reaction to the tragic looting of the museum of Baghdad in 2003.
She has participated in both solo and group exhibitions, in London and in the Persian Gulf.

Work

She has written one novel, and has also published a book with a collection of her poetry and paintings. Much of her work is inspired by poetry. Her later paintings incorporates Arabic script, over which she has mastery demonstrates a sincerity to Arab civilization especially the Babylonian and Sumerian civilizations. Her artworks have inspired the poetry of several Arabic poets including Laoy Taha and Mahmoud Darwish.

Solo exhibitions