Athar Jaber, the Acclaimed Iraqi-Dutch Sculptor, is Finally Feeling at Home in Abu Dhabi
by Rawaa Talass
AD Middle East
11 March 2025
Born in Rome to Iraqi parents the artist is questioning concepts of identity and belonging through his thought-provoking new exhibition in Dubai
In the outskirts of Abu Dhabi stands an industrial warehouse lined with racks filled with classical statues. You’ve not been teleported to a marble workshop in Italy; this is, in fact, Iraqi-Dutch sculptor Athar Jaber’s studio. Dotted with plaster casts, marble works, unfinished heads, and small samples of the human anatomy, he likes to call it his “library of sculptures.”
“This is where I’m happiest,” the Rome-born artist, who recently moved to the UAE capital, told AD. “I come here without any distraction. Among my tools and materials, I really feel at home.”
The actual concept of a ‘home’, however, is somewhat cloudy for Athar: Born in the Italian capital to Iraqi parents and raised in Florence – where he immersed himself in its streets where art, particularly sculptures, dot every corner – he previously lived, studied and taught sculpting in Belgium for twenty years before moving to Abu Dhabi. And whilst he is yet to visit his country of origin, Iraq has played an influential role in his life, even from a distance.
His parents, the notable painters Afifa Aleiby and Jaber Alwan (he is also the nephew of artist Faisal Laibi Sahi), left their country back in the Seventies, searching for a better life abroad. In Europe, they were amongst a prolific diaspora of creative Iraqi writers, intellectuals, poets, musicians, and artists. But life wasn’t easy. “They were all suffering in a state of anxiety,” recalls Athar. “They were away from their homeland, which was being torn by wars. Conflict was a constant in their mindset. I was a kid back then, but I could feel it.”
Growing up during the Gulf War, Athar was teased about his ethnicity by his classmates causing him to stop speaking Arabic at the age of 10, and detach himself from his identity. “I remember it was hard. Kids can be very harsh without knowing. So, suddenly I was the ‘Iraqi kid.’ We were the bad guys, although we had nothing to do with what was happening.”
Identity, as well as personal and collective trauma, are key themes that he explores in his artworks, which can be seen in a new exhibition, Vestiges, at Ayyam Gallery in Dubai. In it, he presents raw and disturbing statues of deformed faces, made of historically-revered Carrara marble. This juxtaposition of something precious that’s been purposely disfigured lends both beauty and dark undertones; the sculptures are accompanied by clinical sketches, some of which he made a decade ago. “They are distorted and that speaks to specific issues that the world is going through right now. I think humanity is fragmented. It has lost its identity, its compass,” explained Athar. “We’ve seen countless images of hapless victims. How do you give these people a voice? I don’t think art should just decorate but it should tell a story and convey a message.”
Aesthetically, the pieces are intentionally unpolished, allowing for little chisel marks to show. “They are like the handwriting of the sculptor, so you have a very direct connection when you see these marks,” says Athar, for whom the rhythmic act of sculpting, carried out through the manual use of a hammer and a chisel as well as machinery, is a physical, labour-intensive practice. He usually starts with a block of stone, carving his way through it. “I’m very jealous of painters,” he says. “They get to sit in their studio with their beautiful carpets, dress properly, can put on music, have guests, and paint. It’s a different type of labour, it’s more noble, let’s say. Sculpting stone is like construction work. I’m dirty, sweating, and my hands are always dusty. I’m breathing dust. There is no comfort here when you work. It’s noisy and physically heavy, so at the end of the day, you’re really tired.”
Often, the creative compares carving stone to living life, to “not be afraid of making mistakes and to enjoy the process.” There are also some myths surrounding sculpting that he is keen to debunk – mostly that it is an art form reserved for men and the strong. “It has nothing to do with muscles,” he says. Indeed, the pages of art history contain notable female sculptors, such as Camille Claudel, Barbara Hepworth, Louise Bourgeois, Mona Saudi, and Saloua Raouda Choucair. Stone is political, too. Historically, this durable material has been used to immortalise and praise religions, cultures, politics and people – it is also a medium to shame and dehumanise “When a regime falls, the first thing they do is bring down the monuments. Stone lasts forever, and that’s why they want to destroy it.”
Aside from the well-received exhibition at Ayyam Gallery, Athar is a participant in the ongoing Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial. For all the soul-searching he has endured, it looks like he has reconciled with his past. “I’ve been thriving in the last year that I’ve been here so much more than my twenty years in Belgium,” he said. “I really felt welcomed coming back here, where the people and the country are proud of me being an Arab.”
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