ZINA AL-SHUKRI
Zina Al-Shukri (b.1978, Baghdad, Iraq) is an Arkansas based painter who paints the figure in a variety of media. Her large portraits are painted from life. Her smaller works are sourced from family photographs, pictures, books, and her own imagination. All of her work is infused with emotionally charged imagery that digs deeper into the human condition. Each figure painted personifies a broad range of feelings, emphasized through gesture and color. Art has been used as a coping mechanism by Al-Shukri since childhood. Themes of war, birth, death, sex, destruction and life often come bubbling up to the surface of her paintings, as well as love, bliss, connection, spirituality and mysticism. Since graduating from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2009, she has become a single mother of three young children, two of which are twins. Al-Shukri has been exhibiting nationally and internationally since 2010.
