BIOGRAPHY

SHWAN DLER QARADAKI

Shwan Dler Qaradaki (b. 1977, Kurdistan, Iraq) is a Norwegian-Kurdish visual artist working primarily with drawing, painting, film, installation and text. His practice explores the relationships between language, memory and image, examining how personal and collective histories are shaped by systems of power, displacement and cultural transmission.

Drawing forms the foundation of Qaradaki's artistic practice. Through large-scale works on paper, moving image and spatial installations, he investigates the lingering effects of linguistic oppression, political violence and forced migration. Rooted in his own experience of growing up in Iraqi Kurdistan and arriving in Norway as a political refugee in 1999, his works move between autobiography and collective history, where individual memories become entry points into broader questions of identity, belonging and historical consciousness.

Rather than illustrating historical events, Qaradaki creates visual allegories in which the body, language and landscape become carriers of memory. His work frequently draws on Kurdish oral traditions, Islamic miniature painting, contemporary drawing and film to construct poetic yet politically charged narratives that examine how violence continues to shape both individual lives and cultural memory long after the event itself.

Qaradaki holds degrees from the Art Academy in Sulaimani and the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO), where he completed a PhD in Artistic Research in 2025. His doctoral research investigated the relationship between drawing and linguistic suppression, asking how the loss, prohibition and translation of language can be articulated through visual form.

His work has been presented in solo exhibitions at institutions including Kunstnerforbundet, Galleri LNM, Tegnerforbundet, Kunsthuset Kabuso, Oslo Museum and during Festspillene i Nord-Norge, and has been shown internationally through exhibitions and film festivals across Europe, North and South America. Qaradaki has received numerous awards and grants, including the Oslo City Art Award, the Norwegian Arts Council's Newcomer Award and the Kistefos Art Prize.

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