Kevork Mourad

For the past 2 weekends, I’ve gone to the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto to see the work of Kevork Mourad, who was artist in residence at the Museum. I wasn’t familiar with his work, but was drawn to watch him work because he was combining painting and printmaking. I loved seeing him work last weekend–he combined painting on flexible plastic sheets with mono printing on large pieces of cotton fabric. Some of his work that he’d done earlier in the week was spread out on the floor and I knew I wanted to see the finished work. It is now, through February 24th, hung in 2 large arcs of 3 layers each. He has created a beautiful city. Parts are broken, parts are whole. They conveyed a haunting atmosphere.

Kevork was born in Syria. I heard him telling another visitor last week that he was creating a city where all 3 major religious groups live in peace–harkening back to Spain in, I believe, the 9th and 10th centuries. His work combines spontaneity with musical collaboration. I didn’t get a chance to see the musician who collaborates with him live, but saw them together in the video that was playing near the installation. His work is tremendously inspiring to me. Here’s a few photos I took each week.