"[…] I try to show in the most pleasant way the sad and excruciating reality, but not in an overt manner. Rather I use the elements of paint that reflect what I want so express and allow me to enjoy my creation, the distance and abyss, the space, composition and use of colour, the anatomy of the body, its movement and of course light. I endeavour to show what this has done to me and my people with lines and shapes that in harmony produce an uncomfortable truth."
Rashid Diab
Rashid Diab (1957) was born in Wad-Medani, a town on the bank of the Blue Nile River in Sudan. From a young age realising that what he wanted to do and could do best was to paint, to become an artist seemed like the only path in his destiny.
He drew his inspiration from his hometown and travels along the majestic river and the colours that it brings with its migratory fauna and diverse flora. It is in these landscapes where Diab first delved into the traditions and culture that composes the heartland of the Sudan. As a child using rudimentary and improvised materials, he knew he had to search further to develop his technique.
He started his studies in 1973 at the College of Fine and Applied Arts in Khartoum. Graduating in 1978 and being awarded a scholarship to Spain to further his formation in fine art. He attended the Complutense University of Madrid and acquired licenciates in both painting and printmaking. Finally in 1991 got his PhD on the Traditional and Contemporary of Sudanese Art. Until today the only one of its kind. For the next 9 years he would teach at that same university. The Arab League then had his thesis translated to Arabic updated and extended in the year 2004.
During the mid 70s he started to exhibit internationally and his works started to be collected by national museums, libraries and private collectors. Recently by the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute and the Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation (DAF). In 1999 he moved back to Khartoum with his family to further the art scene in Sudan. The same year he opened Dara Art Gallery along with his wife at the time, Dr. Mercedes Carmona. This was the first professional art gallery of the country.
In 2005 he inaugurated the Rashid Diab Arts Centre. A non-profit organization dedicated to the eradication cultural illiteracy as Diab would put it. Courses were held there for children, international artist residencies, exhibitions of over 200 Sudanese artists, free entry weekly forums that ranged all types of subjects, from history, poetry and philosophy to current global and social local issues. He homaged practically all of Sudanese traditional music at the end of those weekly forums (over 620 in the 18-year span).
Unfortunately, due to the catastrophic war that broke out on April 15th 2023, in Khartoum, Rashid Diab had to flee his home, his life and country back to Spain where he keeps painting.