Sketch

Ismail Fattah’s layered approach to sculpture can be seen through his reference sketches and overall drawings. While this blend of the modern and the archaic appears often in his finished sculptures, here we see it in the early stages of his process. Fattah believed that modernism stretched beyond European art conventions, which translated in his own style of abstraction through a strong influence by the ancient civilizations of Iraq and the wider region.

This influence appears in the sketch through static positioning, broad shoulders and clasped hands of the two figures, a simplified man and a woman. Using his own artistic lens, Fattah employed minimalism to capture the essence of his subjects.