AGE: 31
BASED IN: Los Angeles
A standout in the latest Istanbul Biennial and the Hammer’s 2025 edition of “Made in L.A.,” Ali Eyal’s multidisciplinary practice meditates on the violence he and his family endured at the hands of the U.S. military during his upbringing in Baghdad in the ’90s and 2000s. Equally important to him is the legacy of that violence, which he calls “the after war.” The grotesque, cartoonish figures in his paintings render the absurdity and distortion of state violence more sharply than realism ever could.
Describe one work you’ve made that captures who you are as an artist.
My work is rooted in my family and the memory of our lost farm, using imagination to revisit places shaped by war and absence. In my video Tonight’s Programme, I made a farewell to my missing father through a video installation in a stormy hall in Baghdad.
Describe your work in three words.
Rotted. Hunting. Imagination.
Imagine someone gives you $150,000 to make anything you want—no strings. What are you making?
With that freedom, I would rebuild my father’s burned car as a large-scale sculptural installation. It was burned by Allied Forces shortly after his disappearance. The car was the most expensive possession we had; selling it would have kept us afloat as we sought to move. Rebuilding my father’s car would become a form of compensation through art for my mother, who carried the greatest losses after his disappearance and the destruction of the only hope she had to continue the journey.
What’s an artwork you didn’t make, but wish you had?
I wish I had made [William-Adolphe] Bouguereau’s Dante and Virgil. I saw it in Paris; it is a life-sized painting. The strong composition, powered by bodies and eyes, drew me in. Dante, Virgil, and a demon watch the struggle between two naked damned souls. One of the young men has his teeth in the throat of the other—in the front of the throat, right below the mouth. The circle of observers so close to the action is a recurrent theme in my work. The delicate erotic element is a theme I would like to explore in my own work.
What art-world trend would you like to see die out?
Prioritizing fame over the quality and depth of work.
Is there a studio rule you live by?
Embrace laziness. It’s in those quiet, slow moments that my work actually takes shape.
See CULTURED’s full 2025 Young Artists list and access other individual artist profiles here.
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