SHWAN DLER QARADAKI
Shwan Dler Qaradaki (born 1977 in Suleimania, Iraqi Kurdistan) is a Norwegian visual artist who works with drawing, painting, photography, installation, and video. He came to Norway as a refugee in 1999. Qaradaki is a graduate of the Suleimani Institute of Fine Arts (Kurdistan, Iraq), NISS (Oslo) and the Norwegian Academy of Fine Arts (Oslo).
He has had solo exhibitions at, among others, Interkulturelt Museum (Oslo), Akershus Kunstsenter (Lillestrøm), the Festival in Northern Norway (Harstad) and the Artists' Association (Oslo). Shwan's art problematizes identities in a multiethnic and multicultural world. Based on his Kurdish background and twenty years of residence in Norway, he examines the field of tension between opportunities, traditions, breaches and prejudices as recurring themes. In 2015 he was awarded the Newcomer of the Year prize from the Norwegian Arts Council. In 2020, as one of eight artists, he was invited by the National Museum to respond to the current I Can't Breathe campaign, where he contributed the film Sharp as a Knife. In 2021, he is part of the first group exhibition in the new National Museum and will have a separate exhibition at Kunstplass Contemporary Art [Oslo]. In 2020 Qaradaki was awarded the Kistefoss Art Award for "The Golden Wish. |