Tarek Sebastian Al-Shammaa is a painter who creates large technicolour canvasses that delve into tropes of mysticism, colonialism, and tokenism. As a first-generation French / Iraqi living in Britain, he continually questions the ongoing turmoil and injustices in the Middle East under Western imperialism, and the effects of colonial exoticism. (Bio courtest the Bomb Factory, London)
His main practice is contemporary history painting in which he combines historical and mythological subject matter, but contrasts these ideas with the harsh reality of the contemporary world. As an artist with a complicated mixed ancestry he is ideally placed to comment on the past / current dominant forces at large.