Kevork Mourad

Artist Biography

Kevork Mourad was born in Kameshli Syria, received his degree from the Yerevan institute of Fine Art, and now lives in New York. A painter and video artist, he has had his animated and live visuals performed around the world–at the Spoleto Festival in SC (2022), Korea National Opera in Seoul (2020), National Cathedral in DC (2020), Dutch Royal Palace for the Prince Claus Foundation (2016), Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC (2018, 2012, 2010), Aga Khan Museum in Toronto (2018), Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA (2018), ElbPhilharmonie in Hamburg (2017), and MuCEM in Marseille (2015, 2013), among many others.

His work is in the permanent collection of Paris’s Institut du Monde Arabe, the Spurlock Museum, and his towering installation Seeing Through Babel was added to the permanent collection of the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto in 2023. The 2016 recipient of the Robert Bosch Stiftung prize, he created the short film Four Acts for Syria. A member for two decades of the Silkroad ensemble, he is one of the artists featured in the documentary The Music of Strangers, directed by Morgan Neville. He has exhibited in galleries around the US, Europe and the Middle East, including the Asia Society Triennial in 2020, the Spurlock Museum, Illinois, (2020), the Paris Art Fair, (2019), the Rose Art Museum, Boston (2017), the Claude Lemand Gallery, Paris (2016), Kuchling Galerie in Berlin (2019), and Tabari Art Space, Dubai, (2019).

He is the recipient of a 2023 New York State Council of the Arts grant and was a fellow at the Fountainhead residency in Miami in 2024.

He is represented by Galerie Tanit, Beirut and Munich. His most recent exhibition was with Perrotin in Shanghai in Spring 2025.

Exhibitions
Featured
MENART 2025

From October 25-27

Featured
Imaginary Homeland
Kevork Mourad

From May 29, 2025 to July 09, 2025

Featured
INTANGIBLE
Collective Exhibition

From November 25, 2024 to January 4, 2025

Featured
MENART 2023

From February 3, 2023 to February 5, 2023

Featured
Paper Trail
50 years
Collective Exhibition

From November 23, 2022 to December 23, 2022

Featured
MENART FAIR 2022

From May 18, 2022 to May 22, 2022 

Featured
I Am One Acquainted With The Night
Collective Exhibition

From June 5, 2021 to September 25, 2021

Featured
Imaginary Cities: Chapter IV
Kevork Mourad

From February 15, 2022 to March 30, 2022

Featured
The Space Between
Kevork Mourad

From June 13, 2018 to August 1, 2018

Featured
… كان يا مكان
Collective Exhibition

From February 16, 2022 to April 16, 2022

Selected Works
Imaginary Homeland

What happens to a home once it is left behind?

Does it remain in stone and silence—or does it migrate too, transforming itself into song, into memory?

In Imaginary Homeland, memory defines architecture. Through layered drawings on denim and linen—materials marked by wear, labor, and tenderness—the artist reimagines the homes of childhood countries that have been abandoned or transformed. Inspired by the historic structures of Aleppo, Syria, these works are not merely reconstructions of place, but emblems of what endures: the warmth of a kitchen, the curved flow of an old-fashioned cursive, the comfort of a lullaby passed down.

Some pieces draw from the mythic: a saint who once lived atop a column near Aleppo, considered mad in life and saintly in death. His pillar became a site of pilgrimage. People broke off pieces of it to eat, believing it would bring fertility. Here, the sacred and the absurd meld into a symbol of endurance, ritual, and faith.

In contrast, a series of 24 small color paintings offers an intimate reflection on our relationship with the land—planting, harvesting, and the quiet dialogue between soil and hand. These works honor the cycles of the harvest, showing how the earth inspires us, and how, in turn, we help it to bloom.

Two major installations extend the exhibition’s terrain: one honoring migrants who crossed the Mediterranean Sea in search of safety, and another meditating on the birth of language and culture—fragile beginnings from which entire worlds grow.

As the artist has often contended, “Art holds a responsibility to document time—so that future generations may understand what it meant to live, to dream, and to endure in the moment of its making.”

Together, these works ask: What do we carry when we are forced to leave? What is buried, what is remembered, and what—through memory and care—might still take root?

Imaginary Homeland
Kevork Mourad
The Silver Light
Acrylic and Silver on Denim Fabric
2025
134 cm x 90 cm

Kevork Mourad
The Knot
Acrylic on Linen
2024
125 cm x 74 cm

Kevork Mourad
Entangled Life
Acrylic on Cotton Fabric
2022








What happens to a home once it is left behind?

Does it remain in stone and silence—or does it migrate too, transforming itself into song, into memory?

In Imaginary Homeland, memory defines architecture. Through layered drawings on denim and linen—materials marked by wear, labor, and tenderness—the artist reimagines the homes of childhood countries that have been abandoned or transformed. Inspired by the historic structures of Aleppo, Syria, these works are not merely reconstructions of place, but emblems of what endures: the warmth of a kitchen, the curved flow of an old-fashioned cursive, the comfort of a lullaby passed down.

Some pieces draw from the mythic: a saint who once lived atop a column near Aleppo, considered mad in life and saintly in death. His pillar became a site of pilgrimage. People broke off pieces of it to eat, believing it would bring fertility. Here, the sacred and the absurd meld into a symbol of endurance, ritual, and faith.

In contrast, a series of 24 small color paintings offers an intimate reflection on our relationship with the land—planting, harvesting, and the quiet dialogue between soil and hand. These works honor the cycles of the harvest, showing how the earth inspires us, and how, in turn, we help it to bloom.

Two major installations extend the exhibition’s terrain: one honoring migrants who crossed the Mediterranean Sea in search of safety, and another meditating on the birth of language and culture—fragile beginnings from which entire worlds grow.

As the artist has often contended, “Art holds a responsibility to document time—so that future generations may understand what it meant to live, to dream, and to endure in the moment of its making.”

Together, these works ask: What do we carry when we are forced to leave? What is buried, what is remembered, and what—through memory and care—might still take root?

Kevork Mourad News
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“الفنان الأرميني السوري كيفورك مراد يبحث عن “الوطن الخيالي
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كيفورك مراد يستجمع ذكريات الوطن السوري
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« Imaginary Homeland », ou l’art en exil de Kevork Mourad
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A Journey Through Memory and Material: Visiting Kevork Mourad’s Studio in Chelsea
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"Constantly striving to spark alternative conversations around the socio-political reality of the Middle East and its diaspora, Tabari Artspace, Dubai is delighted to announce its first show of the new season – Between Floating Worlds – a solo exhibit of visual artist Kevork mourad ⚡️ On view until 16 January 2020 More info"
Kevork Mourad | Tabari Artspace, Dubai
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