David Najib Kasir Artist Talk
Tue, Aug 01
|Var Gallery 5th Street
Join us Tuesday to get an in-depth look into David's current exhibit at Var Gallery 5th street, "Neighborhoods in Subtraction"
Time & Location
Aug 01, 2023, 6:00 PM – Aug 02, 2023, 7:30 PM
Var Gallery 5th Street, 423 W Pierce St #1704, Milwaukee, WI 53204, USA
Guests
About the Event
"Neighborhoods in Subtraction" is an exhibition that interrogates the role Western media plays in constructing cultural narratives, while centering a caring and concerning lens on the destruction of Syria and its people through large-scale paintings.
For Kasir, the works start from a personal place. “Iraq is my father’s country, and Syria is my mother’s as well as the second home of my youth. It is where my aunts, uncles and cousins are still living. It is where there are buildings where I slept in and streets where I played tag and other games as a child. I’ve witnessed years of destruction of my countries from US invasion, with very little regard from Western mainstream media to civilian casualties.”
This personal experience fueled Kasir’s anger and frustration, and gives way to large-scale paintings that place the viewer in the center of the neighborhood experiencing destruction. The viewer is confronted with encounters between civilians and soldiers, families embracing each other as they look on at the fallen buildings and rubble.
Making visible what happens to civilians is the intent of “Neighborhoods in Subtraction” and is placed in the larger context of cultural significance through the use of Arab design elements. As Kasir explains, “I entrap the Syrian landscapes in Arab mosaic patterns, not as a backdrop, but as a culture of people trying to hold up their structured environment as best as they can with little to no help from others.”
“Neighborhoods in Subtraction" questions how much devastation can be endured before the Western media starts to care. Kasir shares “I worked to create an awareness and concern of wars and families who have lived in lands of conflict that have terrorized their lives for years. A country that has been ravaged by Soviet bombings and attacks but is not getting the media attention, care and humanity that a dominantly white country would receive. Through these works, I create an environment that invites viewers to stand in the middle of a neighborhood that once housed families. A neighborhood that no longer looks like the streets I played in as a child.”
David Najib Kasir, a Milwaukee-based painter whose work is comprised of personal narratives and cultural history or events. In recent years, Kasir's work draws on stories from his parents’ journey to the U.S. and the current crisis from where they migrated (his mother migrated from Syria, and his father, Iraq). As an artist born here, Kasir reveals his cultural identity in paint and designs to inform viewers on the recent wars in Syria, in hopes of helping them develop an understanding of the millions of voiceless Arabs now living in chaos and disarray.
By using beautiful traditional Arab designs called Zellige to dress the figures in his work, Kasir shows the beauty of a culture and the tragedy as families try to hold on to it and each other as everything around them falls apart.
Kasir has a BFA in painting from Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (2001) and is the proud father of two young adult daughters (one being an artist themselves).