Candlelight vigil held for Kurdish artist Gara Rasul
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – In honor of the 40th day of the death of well-known Kurdish artist and art theorist Gara Rasul, forty candles were lit on Thursday in a ceremony in Erbil organized by the Ala Center for Cultural and Artistic Development.
Rasul passed away on May 14 at the age of 68, after suffering a severe illness in Germany.
He has opened hundreds of exhibitions in Kurdistan and European countries and his work has attracted the attention of artists worldwide.
Wishyar Karadaghi, a friend of the artist, told Kurdistan 24 that after the Kurdish uprising in 1991, there was an absence of painting in the Kurdistan Region. Rasul started a new revolution in artistry with his prolific paintings and became a national treasure of Kurdish art.
“Most of the artist's paintings expressed his pain as an artist and Kurdistan's development and prosperity at different stages,” he added.
Ramyar Jawhar, head of the Ala Center, told Kurdistan 24 that “Besides being known for his art, Rasul was a prominent writer in expressing the suffering of artists. He has written two books in Kurdish and Arabic about art, which have become part of German art centers' curriculum."
At the end of the ceremony, a documentary on Rasul's life between 1955 and 2023 and some of his portraits were screened.
Rasul was born in 1955 in Kirkuk and held a master's degree in art history from the University of Cologne, Germany. Rasul was also a writer and art critic.
