Rashid Abbas
Born in Falouja (Irak) in 1956.
Iraqi · Contemporary art · expressive figuration and abstraction · painting, relief, sculpture and mixed media bridging Iraqi memory and a Swiss context.
An Iraqi artist long active in French-speaking Switzerland, Rashid Abbas works across painting, drawing, sculpture, relief and mixed media. After training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad, he continued his artistic studies in Geneva and Lausanne, gradually becoming part of the cultural landscape of the Lake Geneva region.
He left Iraq in 1982 amid the war with Iran. Following a journey that also took him to Canada and Eastern Europe, he chose Switzerland as his place of residence and work. This experience of displacement informs an oeuvre poised between Iraqi memory, observation of the present and engagement with his Swiss surroundings.
His paintings feature eroded walls, dark paths, hills, figures and faces, alongside increasingly free and abstract compositions. Colours associated with Eastern visual culture enter into dialogue with formal structures developed in Europe. Some works directly address the wounds of Iraq’s recent history, while later pieces place greater emphasis on colour, material presence and the image’s aesthetic autonomy.
Alongside his studio practice, Abbas taught art at several schools in French-speaking Switzerland, notably within the context of the School of Applied Arts in Vevey. His exhibition activity is documented in Lausanne, Geneva, Vevey, Montreux, Yverdon-les-Bains, Cortaillod and Worb, as well as at Geneva’s ICAM, where “Structures abstraites” highlighted the abstract dimension of his work.