Untitled
2020
Acrylic and ink on paper
30 x 23 cm; handstitched
Artist’s Statement
I grew up in a place where ancient civilizations collided to create layers of culture that produced art, artifacts, music, and architecture that inform my own art. The descendant of Armenian genocide survivors, I feel it is my duty to preserve culture and history, especially in these times in which my native Aleppo has known significant destruction. I strive to give voice to places that no longer exist, to give my interpretation of what has been lost in order to figure out how that history and culture can be recovered, at least in our emotional memory.
Biography
Kevork Mourad (b. 1970, Qamishli, Syria) lives and works in New York City. Mourad employs his technique of live drawing and animation in concert with musicians—developing a collaboration in which art and music harmonize with one another. He is the only visual artist member in Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble and is featured in the film Music of Strangers (2016). Other collaborators include Kim Kashkashian, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Brooklyn Rider, The Knights, Perspectives Ensemble, Paola Prestini, and Kinan Azmeh. He has performed at the Aga Khan Museum (Toronto), Art Institute of Chicago, the American Museum of Natural History, Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Bronx Museum, Carnegie Hall, ElbPhilharmonie (Germany), Rhode Island School of Design, Nara Museum (Japan), Lincoln Center Atrium, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Mourad has been a resident teaching artist at Brandeis University, Harvard University, and Holy Cross (Worcester). He received his Master of Fine Arts from the Yerevan Institute of Fine Arts in Armenia. His works are in the permanent collection of the Institut du monde arabe in Paris. In October 2020 he premiered the visuals for Beethoven’s Fidelio for the Korea National Opera. Other recent projects include, Unholy Wars (Spoleto Festival and Opera Philadelphia); Triptych with the Kronos Quartet and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Paper Pianos with Alarm Will Sound, EMPAC, New York, to be performed at the Perelman Art Center in NYC.
Kevork Mourad – Untitled
Quarantined in New York; For Cities Under Quarantine – The Mailbox project