Sahar Zuher
Sahar Zuher (b. Baghdad, Iraq) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Kapellen, Antwerp. Working across painting, printmaking, drawing, collage, sculpture, and video, she incorporates materials such as rusted metal, cardboard, scrap fabric, antique paper, ink, and wood to explore memory, identity, displacement, and survival. Her childhood, shaped by war and forced migration, profoundly informs her work, which transforms worn garments, fragmented scripts, and makeshift shelters into visual languages of resilience.
Arabic calligraphy, particularly geometric Kufic script, recurs throughout her oeuvre as both a personal reflection and a vessel for collective cultural memory. Zuher is best known for Once Upon a Time, an installation narrating the story of a fighter who carried his lover’s letters through war—fragile yet enduring symbols of connection stronger than violence. This work, which employs six printmaking techniques layered on Lokta paper treated with ink and coffee, marked a milestone in her practice as her first sculptural work presented to a professional audience and was awarded first prize by the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, leading to a solo exhibition.
Among her other important series, Monoprint on Postcard (2002–2004) reflects on family correspondence during the fall of Iraq’s regime, using symbolically encoded monotype prints to explore the fading intimacy of handwritten letters. Fragile (2016) examines the social consequences of war, particularly its impact on children, transforming photographs and media images into works depicting hunger, illness, loss, and displacement. Recent works expand into stop motion, animation, and installation, addressing migration, the history of Iraq, the lives of working children, and cross-cultural connections inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy and Islamic concepts.
Technique and Style
Her technique merges traditional printmaking methods—monotype, drypoint, linocut, lithography, and screen printing—with contemporary mixed-media processes. She layers, erases, and re-inscribes elements, stains paper with coffee and ink to evoke age and memory, and incorporates textiles or garments to embed traces of lived experience. Zuher’s style is defined by layered surfaces, textured materiality, and the interplay between abstraction and symbolism.
Exhibitions
2025 – Group Exhibition, Voor Kunstwerkt, CC De Schakel, Waregem, Belgium
2025 – Group exhibition, the juried exhibition Magrafika
2025 – Group exhibition, 2025 – Group Exhibition, M HKA Museum – Antwerp Participation with an animated film in remembrance of the Belgian artist Panamarenko.
2025 – Solo exhibition, The Gallery Iraq – Baghdad
2025 – Solo exhibition, Kunstkring Jacques Gorus – Antwerp
2024 – Group exhibition, Zomerexpo, Campo Campo – Antwerp
2023 – Solo exhibitions At Blackbox / Royal Academy of Fine Arts
2022 – Participation Blikfabriek, in Antwerp
2020 – Participation stadsmagazijn
2020 – Solo exhibition, Stadsmagazijn, Antwerpen
2019 – Solo exhibition, villa de gravier brakel
2018 – Solo exhibitions, The Others , Banks hotel, Antwerpen
2017 – Solo exhibition gallery,In Bredabaan Merksem
2017 – exhibition gallery In Galerie Villa De Graeve
2016 – Solo exhibitions Fragile in Sint-Jozefskapel Brasschaat.
2016 – Solo exhibitions Fragile in Cultuurcentrum De Steiger
2014 – Workshop in Menen for children Arabic Calligraphy as an ArtForm
2013 – Participation, Baghdad capital of Arab culture , European Parliament
2013 – Solo exhibitions, The Others , Banks hotel, Antwerpen
2011 – Participation, In Ogen Van, in Zuiderpershuis, Antwerpen
2011 – Participation in the art auction organized at benefit of the Harvey cushing Centre, in province House Antwerp
2011 – Participation, Babylon Revisied- outside the green zone,Eindhoven
2010 – Participation, la fete l’humanite, charl gol paris
2010 – Participation, zomerexpo, Campo campo ,Antwerpen
2009 – Solo exhibitions, the red sky, Protestants Sociaal Centrum, Antwerpen
2008 – Solo exhibitions, Memory walls, Zuiderpershuis, Antwerpen
2008 – Participation, Kultuur 08, Dendermonde
2008 – Live drawing with poems with Cactusbloem vzw, Antwerpen
2009 – Participation, Pro Patria, Antwerpen
2006 – ParticipatioFortEuropa,Oostende