Egyptian artist Ahmed Morsi briefly lived in Baghdad between 1956 and 1957, a period considered the peak of artistic and cultural renaissance in the city. During this time, Morsi taught English and explored art and cultural criticism. He returned to Cairo in 1957, continuing his career as a painter and writer alongside other creative pursuits. It was during this period that Morsi refined his distinctive style, which later underwent a momentous shift, from naturalistic to surrealistic, when he relocated with his family to New York in 1974. Woman’s Head (1972) is an oil on canvas painting that reflects Morsi’s surrealist style of statuesque figures and haunting apparitions, seemingly in a bardo [a state of existence between death and rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism]. His totemic imagery often toes the line of the unconscious and the imaginary. 

*Currently exhibited at Aranya Art Center