Iraqi-born artist Ahmed Alsoudani has earned admiration in global art circles for his abstract and turbulent paintings that deal with war, atrocity and the thin line separating life and death. Alsoudani, who was born in Baghdad in 1975, sought political asylum in the United States in 1999, and now lives in Berlin. His paintings and drawings ruminate on Iraq’s troubled history but manage to display more universal themes of struggle, despair and destruction through their creation of ethereal landscapes and bursts of bright colour. Alsoudani includes static planes and solid shapes in his paintings, which draw inspiration from the works of 17th- and 18th-century European artists, as well as Francisco Goya, Pablo Picasso and from Middle Eastern art, literature and contemporary poetry. Major global collectors have taken note of Alsoudani’s distinct and extraordinary works of art. He was named to Forbe’s Magazine’s “Watch List” as one of the most-collectible emerging artists, and his work has been featured in numerous global shows including, notably, the Saatchi Gallery.