When cultures come together
In some form, art and creation has to be formal. But nowadays, with the aid of photagraphy, painters have broken through from the form expressing as it used to be. Sattar is a good example with his metaformal way of showing us the whole by letting colors meet each other and let the beholders eye form – well, whatever the onlookers eye form of the sight.
I wouldn't want to underline any forms to his pieces, as I know that all the eyes which get to capture the sight of the paint of Sattar, see the paintings from their own perspective. For me, the paintings tell stories from underwater worlds to classical paint compositions and beyond, to summer afternoons light from a window and to some glances of the globe itself.
When the light and the warmth of the Middle East met the icy and dark boreal climate of the Northern hemosphere, it gave birth to these paintings, which Sattar has made during the seven years he has stayed here in Finland. Why couldn't it happen, every time when cultures collide, in this peaceful harmony of different colours coming to meet each other on the canvas and to give each other different tones to shine in - all of them having their own space and time in unity.
But not all of Sattars works tell me about peace, when remembering his far away birthland, Iraq, and the great injust it has faced by some of the western worlds politicians. Sometimes I see fire catching the paint and different colors bouncing from each other in the vicinity of the beholder of the sight – like the world itself.
But the harmony comes again when I see the wholeness of all the works together – when fire meets ice, the ice melts and the elements give a healing hug to each other bringing one and other out of dualism of the poles. While none of the phenomena of the world are black and white, the paintings of Sattar are definitely rich in all colours without falling into the depths of the ancient way of giving the illusions an exact form. The paintings give different worlds to everybody, this one was my illustration inspired by the paint on canvas. Now, lets let the paintings speak for themselves.
Timo Puohiniemi
24.2.2006