Exiled artist's work makes public debut

The remarkable talents of an Iraqi born artist, who for years had her work suppressed by censors, are being unveiled to the world for the first time in a new book.

Under Saddam, every attempt Soodad Al-Naib made to exhibit her pictures was thwarted by over-zealous officials concerned at the content, and discouraged by a family fearful of the reaction she might provoke.

More recently, the present conflict in Iraq has made an exhibition an impossible venture. She has seen at first hand the conflict tearing the country apart, having been scarred in a bomb attack and relentlessly pursued by a militia.

She has witnessed the deaths of her nearest colleagues, helped her sister who was partially blinded in a suicide bomb attack, and assisted the escape of her brother who was threatened with death. All the while her only salvation has been her art, but there has been no outlet for her work - until now.

The French Non-Governmental Organisation, SOS Terrorism, which campaigns globally on behalf of victims of terrorist attacks, selected Soodad to illustrate their latest publication, 'Broken Lives', a collection of testimonies from people who have survived attacks across the world.

It will be the first time that others will see Soodad's work, who has only ever been free to hang her pictures in the privacy of her home or at the offices of the Medical Foundation, where she is a client, hidden from suspicious eyes yet also from the admiration they deserve.

Proudly displayed on the wall of the small, one-room flat that she shares with her sister, are the originals of Soodad's intensely moving pieces. It is obvious to even the untrained eye that her work is a visceral reaction to all that she has suffered and witnessed. A series of three dark images contain faces within bodies, ghostly reflections of pain veiled by streaks of smooth acrylic in oranges, reds and browns.

"Sometimes when I look at my paintings I see the faces of my friends who died, I see the pain and it makes me sad. But I want to remember, I need to remember otherwise their suffering will be forgotten," says Soodad, referring to the series of canvases she painted while recovering after being caught up in a bomb attack in 2003.

Others convey her anguish at the way she has been treated by the UK asylum process. It is interesting that these pictures contain more light than the others for Soodad maintains that her experiences in the UK are nothing compared to the horrors that forced her to leave her homeland.

Knowing that people around the world will now be able to see her work is an incredibly important step for Soodad, who is a regular at the MF's weekly open art sessions, where clients are given the space and freedom to paint outside the paradigm of formal art therapy.

"I've never been able to say everything, words will always fail me. My English is not that good and I'm always scared that someone is watching me. Whatever you do back home [in Iraq] is political and carries a danger," says Soodad

"Here, I can draw and there are lots of clues inside my paintings which people can look at and know what's going on. I prefer to leave it to people's imaginations than to describe my work."

However, understanding Soodad's past imbues her work with even greater potency.

Growing up in 1990s Baghdad as a woman meant that Soodad's career prospects were always thwarted by prejudice and authority. She was actively discouraged from painting, both by a family fearful of the reaction it might provoke and by peers who did not consider the work of a female artist a serious contender.

Her life changed when she managed to secure work with the UN in Kurdistan, northern Iraq, working with refugees on the UN's Oil for Food program before being transferred to a post in the library's archiving department. It was a turning point that Soodad had hoped would lead to a secure future. She couldn't have been more wrong.

Being an Arab working for the UN carried its own dangers and three years later, in 2002, Soodad was transferred to another district in northern Iraq where she was tasked with helping to devise infrastructure maps for the UN local authority. Soon after her placement, Kurdish forces became convinced that Soodad had been placed with the UN by the Iraqi government as an agent.

She was arrested by security officials and held overnight in a police cell where she was viciously taunted and verbally abused, accused of being a spy. She discovered that her brother, who had been working as an engineer with Saddam's Republican Guard, had been arrested by Kurdish forces and was being interrogated about his sister's work. Knowing it was the only way to secure her own safety and save her brother, Soodad agreed to be an informant and was released.

Both were smuggled out of Kurdistan by the UN and spent the next two months in hiding, unable to contact their family, living in a state of dread. The UN eventually transferred Soodad's posting to Baghdad following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. But after only two weeks a suicide bomber attacked the UN headquarters in Baghdad.

Soodad and her sister, who was visiting the UN offices at the time, recall vividly the chaos after a truck filled with explosives came hurtling towards the building. Miraculously, they survived.

"It was like we only ever watched it happen," says Soodad, with a look of disbelief. "I remember opening my eyes to see destruction everywhere; people were being carried out with limbs missing. I looked down and saw that me and my sister had our arms around each other; we were safe. It was a miracle."

All the injured UN staff were evacuated to Jordan for treatment. There, Soodad says they were labelled traitors, and faced further humiliation by dismissive staff, left waiting virtually naked and with their injuries unattended in hospital corridors.

Due to the extent of their injuries they were sent to the UK for reconstructive surgery. A year later, the pair returned to Iraq to visit their ill father but were greeted with hostility, death threats and abusive phone calls wherever they went. As a result, Soodad and her sister were forced to flee to the UK, where they have remained ever since.

For Soodad, the one good thing to emerge from all the suffering is the sole fact that she can now paint freely in the hope that her work will tell her story and that of others like her who are unable to speak for themselves. As she says in her testimony in 'Broken Lives':

"I put my thoughts and yells on canvas; my life has been a hard journey never finding a reason why, my pain has never stopped, my losses were so great that I forgot how to count them. My fears still exist and I don't know what tomorrow will bring for me or take from me, my path seems thorny and dark. My heart is still in Baghdad knowing there are millions of people suffering endlessly and I'm just one reflection of their daily life."

*For a copy of 'Broken Lives', visit www.lulu.com/content/613191.

*For more information on the MF's Open Studio visit: http://www.torturecare.org.uk/about_us/art_therapy