Rushdi Anwar (b. Halabja, Kurdistan-Iraq) lives and works between Chiang Mai (Thailand), Melbourne (Australia), and Sulaymaniyah (Kurdistan-Iraq). His work reflects on the socio-political issues that continue to mire West Asia's geopolitics (historically known as ‘The Middle East’). Drawing on his personal experiences of displacement, conflict, and trauma endured under Iraq’s colonial and ideological regimes, Rushdi’s art references and generates discourse concerning the status of social equity—exploring its political, social, and religious complexity via study of form and its materiality. Embracing installation, sculpture, painting, photography, and video, his practice recalls the everyday plight of the thousands displaced currently suffering discrimination and persecution, questioning the possibility of redemption and collective necessity to attend with empathy as a social imperative.
Rushdi earned his Ph.D. in Art from RMIT University, Melbourne, and is currently a senior lecturer in the Painting Division of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Chiang Mai University, Thailand.
He has held solo and group exhibitions in Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Cuba, Finland, France, Italy, Japan, Kurdistan, Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, Switzerland, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, USA, and Vietnam.
Rushdi was one of six artists shortlisted for the Artes Mundi 10-Biennial Prize, Cardiff, UK, 2023; notable recent exhibitions include ‘Hope and Peace to End All Hope and Peace, The Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok, Thailand, 2023-24; ‘Home and the World,’ The Museum Van Loon, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2024; ‘Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present’, Sharjah, 2023; ‘Art in Conflict,’ Australian War Memorial touring exhibition, various venues, Australia, 2022-24; ‘wHole,’ Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2022; ‘Now’, Esta Gallery at The Culture Factory, Sulaymaniyah, 2022; ‘The Tides of the Century’, Ocean Flower Island Museum, Danzhou, 2021; ‘Escape Routes: Bangkok Art Biennale’, Bangkok, 2020; Project ‘Intercambio’, The 13th Havana Biennial 2019, Cuba (2019); The National 2019, New Australian Art, Biennale, Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW) Sydney, Australia (2019); MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai, 12th Gwangju Biennale 2018, Gwangju, South Korea (2018)
His works are held in public collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Sydney, Australia; Sharjah Art Foundation Collection, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates; Australian War Memorial Collection, Canberra, Australia; The KADIST Foundation Collection; The Gene and Brian Sherman Collection, Sydney, Australia; The Mordant Family Collection; The Kurdistan Regional Government, the Ministry of Arts & Culture, Sulaimani; Da Nang Fine Arts Museum collection, Da Nang, Vietnam; and Private Collections, Kurdistan and Australia.