For the artist Dia al-Azzawi, round artworks are fundamentally different to those in rectangular formats as the viewer’s eye wanders in more random and circular movements, as opposed to following a logical narrative progression as if reading a page. This challenges his sense of composition as the relationship of elements radiating from the centre towards the edge becomes more important than vertical and horizontal elements.

Azzawi started making circular compositions in the 1980s, appearing in carpet designs in 1983 and silkscreen prints in 1987, and then as round paintings from 1996 onwards. Azzawi continued to make circular artworks on both wood and canvas in the 21st century, and turned to circular bas-relief sculptures in the 2010s, as part of a vast series of sculptural artworks based on the desert rose.

Born in Baghdad in 1939, Dia al-Azzawi settled in London in 1976. As a trained archaeologist, he was already literate in Mesopotamia’s rich cultural heritage, but visiting several museums and libraries across Europe enabled him to discover the arts of many civilizations and to rediscover manuscripts from the golden age of Islamic civilization during the Abbasid era. The culture and the history of the Arab world as a whole have always been the main source of his inspiration. He appreciates Arabic poetry from the modern era as well as more classical verse, and he has produced a prolific and rich oeuvre, inspired by the great modern and contemporary Arab poets of the past.

Watching the infamous attack on New York’s World Trade Center on the news, Dia al-Azzawi had an immediate artistic reaction to this. Black Roots (2001) depicts a nightmare vision: the scene is dominated by enormous dark flames, whilst the sky and horizon are black. Azzawi is an Arab nationalist, committed to defending and pre-serving the cultures of the Arab world. He always denounced the West’s attacks on the Arab world and its people, as well as its support for Israel and for corrupted authoritarian Arab regimes, while also acknowledging a dark and negative side to it.

Of the 41 tondos Azzawi painted since 2001, Black Roots is the only tragic one relating to contemporary events. The other cicular paintings celebrate the world’s beauty through colour: the love of life, sweeping landscapes, resplendent gardens, the noc-turnal blue of peaceful dreams without nightmares. Blue Landscape (2016) is an example of a large three-dimensional joyful tondo. It is a cubistic composition which could allude to a real landscape seen through an aeroplane window (the artist travels extensively) or a window with a view over the Mediterranean Sea, a landscape from a dream characterised by its deep blue colour, alluding to either day or night… it stays open for interpretation.

The same deep, peaceful blue also appears in bas-relief form in The Prophet’s Garden (2020–22), while Azzawi’s celebration of the rich colours of the natural world can be viewed throughout a collection of smaller tondo paintings made in 2023–24 (Forgotten Garden, Marrakech Sunset, Green Field, Morning Rose, Blue Window, Sunny Day and Red Field).

These circular artworks illustrate well the two permanent sides of the great Arab artist from London: a duty to document the massacres and violent events that have traumatized the Arab world for decades – often viewed as part of the tradition of Picasso as an artist-witness – and a polychromatic celebration of the light of the Arab world and its gardens – related to Matisse’s joyful works about nature – which express the joy of living.