Simko Ahmed 、in Kurdish سمکۆ ئەحمەد in Arabic سمکو احمد , in Japanese 澄湖 アフマード” is a fine artist and writer born in Slemani city in Kurdistan in 1972. He is the first Kurdish man to be granted Japanese citizenship. He has lived in Tokyo since 1996. He obtained BSc in fine arts in Tokyo and MSc in civil engineering at Tokyo university.
He is a civil engineer and widely exhibited artist, he is also a board member of the Japanese international Art Association of JAALA ( Japan , Asia, Africa and Latin America Art Association ) where he is a regular participant as an artist ,he is also in charge of curating and selecting art works from the Middle East and Latin America for Jaala Biennale which is held in the famous Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. He is also founder of Baran Art Association. Simko has also held over 15 solo art shows so far in Japan, Kurdistan , Africa Sierra Leone, Liberia , Afghanistan, Canada , The USA , The UK and other European and Asian countries . Simko has also participated in over 50 international art shows and Biennale in both Tokyo and Seoul Metropolitan art museum and Asia's famous Kwangju Biennial 2000 Man + Space in South Korea, London Biennale in UK, Florence Biennale in Italy 2021, Yokohama Triennial and Jaala Biennale in Japan… etc , his art works has been published on many Japanese top art magazines such as Art graph , Asahi graph , Pie , Raku, cross talks and studio Ghibli, he has been invited as a guest to the hard talk program at NHK TV (BS22) in Japan.
He moved to Japan in 1996 while he was working for a Japanese NGO called Peace Winds Japan he started to work for international humanitarian NGOs upon his graduation from university and he has been helping refugees and people in need around the world from Asia to the Balkans, Kurdistan, Kosovo , Albania, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Japan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, designing infrastructures in war-torn zones and natural disasters areas. The chairman of Japanese art critics association Mr. Harui Ichiro often wrote and supported Simko’s art journey, Simko combines art with human rights issues, he says, art and human rights can be like fingers and rings. Simko also says “pain made him hold brushes and love made him continue” He is creative in his image, and his works are originals that tell stories based on his own experiences in life. Simko often make his own canvas by using refugees tents so as the canvas tell its own stories as well.
Simko currently lives in the UK and his most recent show was at the Chelsea town hall Gallery in London. His most latest book, Sparrows of Paradise, was published in 2019. Earlier books are: Spring Never Dies - 2011 , colours of Paradise - 2010, Baran Art 1 - 2012
You can see more of Simko ‘s art works at his personal URL
www.simko-art.co.uk
Simko Ahmed ‘s art message for JAALA biennale at Tokyo Metropolitan art museum 2004
Art statement
It is not easy for imaginative flowers of Artists and Writers to grow freely. Yet the slow rain of freedom falls through intervening hardships of civilization and the fertile land embraces all truths. The freedom to express, to hear, to work and create requires we artists to maintain a pure nature so that we can understand nature itself. We need a free tongue to sing a free song. We have to break the chains that shackle our hands so that we can draw our tablets faithfully.
Art is a humanitarian and colorful message, where conception fingers dance on the vocals of idea, beauty and reality. The artist posts a message into the human conscience with the wideness of conception -- eyes light and love of the human heart travel the right and wide roads of history. If the artist's message is not one of human affairs and the means of freedom and equality, then history's gate is never opened and the artist remains a dweller outside history, blind of the future.
I believe art is a violin, its substance a bow on the strings of conception. A beautiful symphony cannot be played with wry fingers of dark and reactionary thought, but can with hands that never clap to crime exploitation and never vote for darkness.
So let all the pretty precious light things spread into the world of real art through fingers which get the sun to throw its rays to human beings FOREVER. [1]
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