Athar Jaber is an Iraqi sculptor who was born and grew up in Italy. His style bridges the Iraqi heritage of his parents, both artists themselves, with the Italian tradition...
Athar Jaber is an Iraqi sculptor who was born and grew up in Italy. His style bridges the Iraqi heritage of his parents, both artists themselves, with the Italian tradition of marble sculpture. The A Mask for Life project, a series of ten modern gas masks crafted meticulously in marble, is part of a COVID-19 fundraising initiative for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Simultaneously beautiful and cautionary, the marble mask evokes both a ubiquitous tool existing in war-torn nations for decades as well as the contemporary reality of refugees displaced in camps where social distancing is impossible. These refugees await the pandemic without the protection of masks. Jaber produces his works directly in marble, without experimenting in clay or plaster first, and the intense actions of hammering and chiseling are therefore personal, immediate reactions to the global tension between violence and beauty.
Jaber received his BA (2007) and MA (2008) in Visual Arts from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium. Additionally, he is a current PhD Associate in the Arts candidate at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp where he teaches several courses. Jaber has exhibited internationally and held numerous solo exhibitions in Italy, Germany, Belgium, and Cuba. He held artist-in-resident positions at Picha Centre D’Art, Lubumbashi, Cuba (2019); the National Musuem of Fine Arts Havana, Havana, Cuba (2017-2018); and the Palestinian Museum, Birzeit, Palestine (2017).