BRIDGING TWO WORLDS THROUGH ART – AZHAR SHEMDIN

As a teacher of Colour Theory, Canadian Iraqi artist Azhar Shemdin guides her students to think independently, to experience the variations and combinations of harmonious colour for themselves rather than rely on what is technically ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.

In the last thirty years, Azhar herself has evolved tremendously as a person and artist, a gift from the Canadian environment that allows freedom of expression and cultural diversity. But the early years in Canada were extremely tough, particularly for someone brought up in the cushioned comfort of an eminent Kurdish family from Zokho on the Iraq-Turkey border.

The artist says, “When I came to Canada the first two years were extremely hard for me, materially, psychologically and otherwise. So, I would paint on canvas, stretched or unstretched. I would put it flat on the floor and pour paints and manipulate the paint until it dried.”

Azhar explained that she did a Bachelor of Education specializing in History and Economics from the University of Toronto, but after graduating she could not find a job. Out of desperation she worked at the University in an administrative position. To keep her sanity intact, she started taking art courses at night at the Ontario College of Art, which went on for several years. Later, when she found a teaching job, she went back to the University of Toronto and over three summers became a specialist in teaching Art.

She recalls, “I came to Canada in the mid seventies. During the first two years I moved seven times. After that I settled in Toronto, then Oakville. My first experiences were interesting and challenging. I was not used to being a go-getter and that was the hardest part. People in Canada are used to competing for jobs and other things. I was brought up in a gracious way and also, as an eastern woman, I was a bit clumsy and cautious when dealing with people in authority and also socially. I was not sure what was right or wrong to say or do. Sometimes I felt that whatever was right back home was wrong here and vice versa.”

She explained, “There was no community from my background to fall back on and no support system to help me along the way. Nowadays, Iraqi immigrants arrive and there is an entire community to show them how to get jobs, arrange housing and so on. So, getting started in Canada was extremely painful for me. However, as they say, hardship is a personality builder. The harder it got, the more I painted in order to cope with it. Also, when you are not sheltered by your own community, it is easier for Canadians to reach out to you and befriend you. There is positive and negative in every situation.”

Though Azhar has imbibed the best of both eastern and western worlds, her roots are very important to her and during recent events like the Gulf War and September 11, her anguish has been eloquently expressed in her paintings.

“Painting forces one to look very carefully and precisely at objects. There are many little details that one cannot notice unless painting the object with its relationships to other things in the foreground and background. An artist can make an excellent witness in a court of law!” she declares.

In 1991, the artist painted “The Fires of Kuwait”. The Gulf War was very dramatic, according to her, and she painted a few scenes of burning oil wells and the bombing of Baghdad as reported in the first thirty seconds of a CNN film. For her everything was gut wrenchingly sad yet visually spectacular. A couple of months after 9/11, she painted the burning of the twin towers.

“For the painting of the burning twin towers, I collected every picture I could find in newspapers and magazines. I had to figure out the exact vantage point, where the sunlight was coming from and the position of the airplanes. It is incredibly sad to paint scenes of carnage and the people who were trapped in the upper floors and some jumping off the buildings….However, what we experience must come out creatively to enable us to deal with events psychologically. I had to paint some “happy” paintings in between to be able to continue with this one. I also listened to some very peaceful tapes by Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra. This culminated in the painting entitled “Fields of all Possibilities”.”

Says Azhar with a laugh, “People say that artists are crazy people. But in actuality, artists are really the sane ones and the others are the crazy ones! Artists get rid of what bothers them by expressing it and getting it out of the system. Then they move on to other things. Other people either bottle up what bothers them or gossip about it endlessly, a very negative experience for people around them. In the end, many end up in mental institutions or lose their friends.”

She believes in the healing power of dreams. “Dreams are very important in dealing with the past, present and future. Many ideas come in the form of dream images. I sketch them first thing in the morning. Then, at a certain point, I use them in a painting. This also opens one’s consciousness to information that flows from a connection with the soul and such higher levels of spiritual wellsprings. An important book that has helped me in remembering and interpreting my dreams is “Man and his Symbols” by Carl Jung.”

In fact it was probably a dream that set the young Azhar on the path to becoming a painter. “When I was in Beirut (doing a masters degree), my sister came from Canada and left five jars of paint from an art course she had taken. They were red, blue, yellow, white and black. One day I had a dream and I painted it on a piece of stretched canvas. I made all kinds of colours from mixing the three primary colours. I found later that the dream had come true… that was the beginning.”

Nostalgia is an important ingredient for inspiration as is depicted in her painting of the inner yard of the family home in Zokho. She painted this in 1985 from old black and white photos. She reminisces, “It depicts the scene when we used to arrive at night after travelling from Mosul. I painted the stars so vividly because it used to feel so great sleeping on the roof in the summer with the cool breeze and billions of stars in the sky. I did not know it at the time, but when I showed the painting to my mother she told me that I was born in the lit up room near the corner on the second floor!”

Another interesting painting is of several women entitled “The Women in my Family”. Explains the artist, “When my mother, Saniya Sulayman Fattah, passed away in 1994, I was completely devastated. I wanted to paint something to celebrate her life, something happy that she would approve of because she was very pleasant and enjoyed making life happy for others. So I painted “The Women in my Family” depicting her (in a blue dress) and my three sisters, Hazar, Gouhar and Hadar and my closest niece, Buthayna. I took the figures from a rug I had made in Iraq. I left them without facial expressions to represent universal womanhood.”

Azhar’s mother passed away outside her country of birth and her children took her back to Zokho to be buried near her husband and her mother. Explains Azhar, “When a person is grieving, there is nothing better than to go home. We connected with relatives and people we have not seen in thirtysomething years. We met their children and grandchildren for the first time. We had missed an entire generation of my home-town folks. It was an amazingly healing experience. Since then, many of our relatives have immigrated to Canada and the USA, so we email and talk on the phone and get regular news from back home.”

Like most creative people, Azhar is not a regimented person. Four years ago she threw out her television set and has never regretted it! “It took me a year of not watching to suddenly realize that I was completely free of TV addiction,” she explains. “We get the news from newspapers and the internet. The quality of news on television is dismal and we are more informed this way. Plus, missing all the advertisements with their well-crafted lies makes life much less stressful.”

As a teacher of colour theory, the artist can tell right away if the person making ads on TV has taken a colour theory course or not. Teaching art has been an ongoing learning experience for her. “I am not sure how colour theory has affected my art but I am more aware as to why I tend to put certain colours near each other. Aside of constantly learning, it is wonderful to see how my students develop and the absolutely excellent work they create.”

From time to time, Azhar takes a few weeks off without any media interference. This means no TV, tapes, radio, internet, books, newspapers or magazines. “It is a wonderfully peaceful experience and a great tool to let the inner creative juices flow that are usually locked in by media interference. This usually becomes a very productive time,” according to her.

“Also I have been able to escape the socializing syndrome of Middle Eastern people and the pressure it puts on women to stay in the kitchen. Socializing wastes creative time. There are only twenty four hours in a day, and therefore, I need to prioritize what I want to do.”

“The other truly wonderful thing that happened when I had no-one from back home to remind me of, was that for many years I did not hear the word “shame” (Ay’b in Arabic). Canadians have the word “guilt” to contend with. But since I was not brought up with it, it never entered my subconscious in any negative way. It is good to have moralizing words, but their excessive use is very limiting.”

Azhar Shemdin has come a long way as a person in her own right. As she explains, “ I have changed in many ways. Living in Canada and working and socializing with people from different backgrounds made me more tolerant and less boxed in. It took me many years to know my rights as a human being and as a woman – to think freely, to express myself freely and expect to be heard respectfully.”

(Azhar Shemdin’s artwork can be viewed on http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/s/shemdin)

BIOGRAPHY

Azhar Shemdin was born in Zokho two weeks before the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Her twin brother was named Ghandi by her father who was a great admirer of the Indian pacifist. Azhar has nine brothers and three sisters and there is another set of twin brothers who are ten years older than her. Her father, Hazim Shemdin, a Member of Parliament, Senator and Minister without Portfolio, was awarded the Iraqi Rafidian Medal for distinguished services. Her grandfather, Yousif Pasha Shemdin Agha, was awarded the title of Pasha by the Ottoman Sultan and also got a medal from Pope Leo XIII for protecting Christians from marauding Kurdish tribes. The Shemdin family owned extensive agricultural land and was the main employer in their area. They divided their time between Zokho and Mosul during Azhar’s early school years but in 1961 the Kurdish revolt forced them to move to Baghdad. After finishing high school in Baghdad, Azhar studied Business Administration in Al Hikma University and then transferred to Beirut to join her mother, sister and brother. There she studied in the American University doing a Masters programme in Modern European History. Eight months after finishing her degree, the Lebanese Civil War broke out and she immigrated to Canada to join the rest of her family in North America. “Thus, an entire chapter in my life of ease and comfort, came to a close,” she says.