Biography

Mishaal Atheer is an abstract figurative sculptor working primarily in bronze. Born in Basra, Iraq in 1978, Mishaal attended the Art Institute in Basra where he received a diploma in Sculpture. He then attended the University of Baghdad, where he received a B.A. Sculpture/Fine Arts while also working on Antiquities Reconstruction for the faculty for Archaeology. After graduation, Mishaal taught sculpture courses at the Art Institute in Baghdad and co-founded a sculptor studio that created public art commissions for private collectors and municipalities. Forced to relocate in the aftermath of the Iraq war, he moved to Amman, Jordan in 2007 where he had his solo exhibition “Sculpture Codes and its Continuance” at the Foresight Gallery in Amman in 2009/2010.  Since 2010, Mishaal calls the California Bay Area his home, where he received his M.F.A. in Sculpture at the Academy of Art in 2018. His current series “Distant Mediations” captures universal bonds connecting humans to each other and to the physical places that give them a home and shape them.  The stylized anatomy of his figures echoes traces of the figurative ancient Mesopotamian sculptures, to mark the modern continuance of their craft and style.