Shwan Dler Qaradaki

June 22-September 15: This summer you can experience the exhibition The Colour og Betrayal by Shwan Dler Qaradaki (1977) at Kabuso.

Dler Qaradaki works with drawing, watercolour, video and installation. He is a Norwegian Kurd who grew up in Iraqi Kurdistan and fled through many countries before settling in Norway.  The background from his home country and experiences as a refugee are central in his art.

The exhibition The Colour of Betrayal shows 25 large drawings/water colour on paper, installation and video works. Dler Qaradaki is deeply personal and uses his own experience and memories as material, as well as the Kurdish people and the people he has met. His art problematizes identities in a multiethnic and multicultural world. Based on his Kurdish background and twenty years of residence in Norway, he examines the field of tension between opportunities, traditions, breaches, and prejudices as recurring themes

Biography
SHWAN DLER QARADAKI (born in 1977 in Suleimania, Iraqi Kurdistan) is a Norwegian visual artist whose practice encompasses drawing, painting, photography, installation, and video. He arrived in Norway as a refugee in 1999.
Qaradaki is a graduate of the Suleimani Institute of Fine Arts (Kurdistan, Iraq), NISS (Oslo), and the Oslo National Academy of The Arts (Oslo). Since 2021, he has been pursuing his doctoral studies in drawing at the Oslo National Academy of The Arts, with expectations to earn a PhD degree in 2024.

Since 2010, he has held numerous solo exhibitions, including individual film and video screenings, predominantly in Norway at, among others, Kunstplass Contemporary Art, Oslo (2021), Cinemateket, Oslo (2020), IKM – Interkulturelt Museum, Oslo (2019), Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo (2017), Arctic Arts Festival, Harstad (2016), and Akershus Kunstnersenter, Lillestrøm (2012).

His most recent group exhibitions include: Investigations of the Jointly Owned, Gallery 69, Oslo (2022), Norwegian Sculpture Triennial, Oslo; I Call it Art, The National Museum, Oslo; Do As Old Masters Do, Terminal B gallery, Kirkenes (all 2021); The Autumn Exhibition, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo; And for a long time, we went without light, Kristiansand Kunsthall; Inquiries of the Social Commons, Spriten Kunsthall, Skien (all 2020), and Human Condition, Tenthaus, Oslo (2015).

His films and videos have been screened worldwide at international festivals such as: Human Right Watch, New York; Rencontres Internationales, Paris; TIFF – International Film Festival, Tromsø (all 2021); 17th Barcelona Film and Human Rights Festival; 32nd Girona Film Festival; Tirana International Film Festival (all 2020); 6th Firenze FilmCorti Festival, Florence, and Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival (both 2019); 29th Sao Paulo International Short Film Festival and 3rd Golden Tree International Documentary Film Festival, Frankfurt (both 2018).

He is a recipient of Norwegian and international art awards, including: The Newcomer of the Year prize by the Norwegian Arts Council (2015); Experimental Short Film Award at the Hollywood International Moving Pictures Film Festival (2017); the Best Documentary Film award for “To My Children” at the 30th Minimal Short Film Festival in Trondheim (2018); and the 2020 Kistefos Art Award for “The Golden Wish.”

>> Artis´s website