Robischon Gallery is pleased to present Iraqi/Colorado artist Halim Al Karim and his photography exhibition entitled, “Eternal Love.” Dramatic large-scale works will be on view along with the artist’s massive custom camera – shipped from his studio in Dubai for the exhibition. In the Annex gallery spaces, three, additional contemplative solo exhibitions of photography and video feature Colorado artist, David Zimmer, Iraqi/Colorado artist, Sami Al Karim and Swedish artist, Maria Friberg.

Internationally recognized artist Halim Al Karim anchors the four-part exhibition with works that utilize his signature photographic techniques – exemplified by the series’ “Eternal Love” and “Lost Memory” along with the artist’s newest “Eternal Love” colloidion photographs produced via his large hand-built camera. Al Karim’s commanding, other-worldly figural images are created through a myriad of methods – often beginning with layers of latex paint applied directly to his models’ faces then subsequently photographing them through a silk scrim. In part, this approach has offered the artist the ability in past series to not only control the lights and shadows, but to “never to be at the mercy of an outside light source” as his philosophical father stated early on to the artist. Al Karim took these words to heart and invented a way of manifesting his elusive images as a protective layer - to obscure the identities of his subjects, “in order to keep them safe.”

The unique evolution of Al Karim’s visual language over the years has become emblematic of a connection across cultures resulting in broad recognition throughout the Middle East and in Europe for his universal concerns for humanity. Choosing love in the face of war and family over politics, Al Karim’s journey of self-discovery has informed the artist’s distinctive bodies of work because of and though a life of much persecution and turmoil. One such pivotal chapter involved tremendous isolation in which Al Karim lived alone in the Iraqi desert for three years to avoid serving in the military under the profoundly cruel regime of Saddam Hussein. As a distillation of such experiences, from the time Al Karim was young, his art has been dedicated to acknowledging the unvarnished realities of the human condition, yet with an overarching theme of love. He offers, “It is my feeling that each soul stems from and exists within an all-encompassing love and cannot wholly survive without recognizing its presence in the world. The shadowy figures of the series, stand on the threshold of two worlds, but reside steadfast in the saturated light of only one. In this, they reveal an open door, where all the beloved who have come before reveal an ultimate view of love eternal.“