“All of our identity is arbitrarily always linked to the question of our origins, our roots. For me, home” is a safe environment in which to create; it’s always where I can find a peaceful corner in which to make my art.”“
Kevork Mourad 

Kevork Mourad was born in 1970 in Qamishli, in northeastern Syria. He grew up in poor conditions in Aleppo and decided to become an artist when he was 6 years old.

At the age of 14, he begins selling his drawings to a local print shop and saves the money to secretly apply to art school in Yerevan, Armenia. He went on to study painting and illustration, graduating with a master’s degree.

Today he lives and works in New York, but still clearly remembers the Aleppo of his childhood days:“Aleppo was a walk-in museum. The old traditional houses and alleys, the blacksmith’s work and the carvings, the stone reliefs and blue and white porcelain, colorful dried wool on the roofs…”

The impressions of the once so lively city, declared a World Heritage Site in 1986 and now largely destroyed by the civil war, continue to shape Mourad’s visual worlds to this day.

In addition, he has a great fascination and sense of responsibility for the history and stories of his Armenian ancestors.

In his paintings and drawings, he often uses historical sites and architecture as motifs, recreates them, and relates them to the present.

Strong colors and a filigree ductus open a deep impression into Mourad’s world. The powerful and at the same time fine contours are reminiscent of Arabic calligraphy, which is traditionally often accompanied by corresponding ornamentation.

Kevork Mourad, Time Immemorial, 2018, Acrylic on cut-up muslin in three layers.