The first time I saw Ismail Khayat’s work, it felt like a dream made from the soil, sky, and the sorrows of Kurdistan. Faces emerged from cracked earth; birds hovered between flight and capture; colors bled into one another like memories too urgent to fade. Born in 1944 in the border town of Xaneqîn, Khayat carried the mountains and rivers of his homeland into his canvases; he also carried its wounds. Working over fifty years, we saw him rise with the modern Kurdish art, and spoke of himself as only a witness.
Khayat’s work told universal stories of what’s felt, what’s seen, what’s survived. His art also showed the fluid, flowing lines of a pen that seemed as if to create beauty so easily, and this in itself spoke of hope. It invited you to linger. Exhibited across Europe, the Middle East, and America, his work didn’t lose its grounding in the Kurdish landscape, even as it learned to speak more and more the visual language the world saw.
His Voice in the Archive
We interviewed Khayat in Slêmanî, in his gallery, in the Kashkul office. We toured Xaneqîn, Pîrer and Helebce with him; he spoke about his earliest memories of drawing: “Students were taught English on the figures I drew. I watched movies in Xaneqîn Cinema, and always drew the scenes and the characters on the margins of any book I had at hand. These were my first trainings.” That resourcefulness never left him. Even in times of war, when materials were scarce, he found ways to keep creating.
He talked with us on the themes in his work. The recurring masks, he explained, came from a childhood memory of villagers covering their faces during dust storms: “A mask can hide you from the world, but it can also protect you from it. In our lives, we have needed both.” The birds were, in his words, “my messengers. They carry the news of our people to places I cannot go.”
And perhaps most strikingly, when we asked him about the political edge of his art, he told us: “I do not paint politics. I paint life. But life is political.”
When we were repainting the stones with him in Pîrer, the no man’s land between the PUK and KDP during the civil war, he had so many stories to tell us: “The project started with a Board advocating for peace that consisted of six members from both KDP and PUK. This place was divided, but the part in which I worked belonged to neither party. I brought both sides to pay for this project. The art in this place connected the two parties together. I collected all the bullets around that area, dug a hole, and buried them there. I was not sure the project would have what results. But, it became the subject of family discussions in their homes. Some critique was that I bolded the borders between the parties, but I replied that what I created was a beautiful necklace to nature.”
The Kashkul Archive
At Kashkul, we’ve always worked to keep cultural memories safe. When we began archiving Ismail Khayat’s work, we understood the gravity of the task. It was the preservation of a lifetime’s witness. We catalogued hundreds of items, from large canvases to sketches, each one a fragment of Khayat’s journey.
We wanted his voice documented, too. The interviews became as important as the images, because they carried his humor, his words, and his eyes. We grew as people when creating this archive; it was teaching us approaches, styles we would come back to.
From Sulaimani to Exeter
This year, the digital archive will travel to the University of Exeter. The decision to host his works there is a continuation of Khayat’s lifelong conversation with the world, and all that he taught us about what collaborations can do. Exeter’s commitment to Kurdish and Middle Eastern studies offers a platform where his art can speak to scholars, students, and the public far beyond Kurdistan’s borders. From the Kashkul Visual Arts, the digital exhibition will also bring the journey we took with Khayat to create this archive.
His Enduring Legacy
At Kashkul, we were never just working with Ismail Khayat. We were friends who talked about art over tea, who argued about colors and symbols, who planned projects and exhibitions with equal parts tangles and laughter. His presence in our space, even as he spoke so softly, carried an energy that seemed to fill the whole room.
I last saw him at Kashkul’s Through the Smoke Behind the Curtain exhibition for Hawre Khalid. Ismail arrived in a denim jacket and jeans, casual in his style, but also active in his style. He was always urging us to rally together for something left unfinished, a campaign, as he’d call it—”Let’s run a campaign to reorganize the paintings,” “Let’s rally together to finish the digitization.”
That day, he wasn’t feeling well. That didn’t matter, he went to art exhibitions, cultural events just the same.
After that night, we never met again. Shene and I left for the US on December 21, 2019. The very first person to call us in Iowa City was Ismail Khayat. His voice brought warmth to the city’s shocking cold. That would be the last time we spoke.
It’s striking how the little things remain. The way he would lean over a table at Kashkul. The way he looked so closely at an artwork in his gallery. The small sweetener tablets he added to his tea. I would look at him in a room full of people, see him always looking, and know he was soon sketching on paper.
At Kashkul, we archived his colors and lines in the hope of archiving the history he poured into them. And in my mind, his denim jacket, our last phone call, the quiet knowledge that friendship, like art, often outlives us, complete the archive.
Ismail once told me, “Art is the only passport they cannot confiscate.” In the journey his work takes from Slêmanî to Exeter, I am reminded that in sharing his legacy, we honor not only him but the lasting stories in his art.
Pshtiwan Babakr
August 11, 2025
Slêmanî
