oil and acrylic.
Rosalind Al-Aswad's work spans nearly fifteen years of painting and drawing. Her works are unique for both their artistic value and social perspective, offering us a personal glimpse into the political upheaval of a pre-Gulf War Iraq.
Al-Aswad translated the personal perspective of her Iraqi-born husband's family into painted testimonials of the Hussein regime. Al-Aswad's images of propaganda, loss, and destruction are especially relevant today in the context of the current Iraqi conflict. Al-Aswad developed her perspective as a feminist in the 1970's through her early career as a single working mother and a fashion designer for Sears Roebuck and others in Chicago. Al-Aswad made the bold decision to carry out her interest in fine arts at the age of 43, and enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she received a BFA in Painting and Drawing in 1991. At the end of her life, as she was suffering from a degenerative neurological disorder, she gazed into a mirror and constructed self-portraits about the various roles one plays in everyday life. RIP Rosalind.
