{"id":303267,"date":"2021-11-28T07:17:24","date_gmt":"2021-11-28T10:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=303267"},"modified":"2021-11-30T19:10:56","modified_gmt":"2021-11-30T22:10:56","slug":"middle-eastern-history-tattooed-on-the-skin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/middle-eastern-history-tattooed-on-the-skin\/","title":{"rendered":"Middle Eastern history tattooed on the skin"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Tattooing artworks inspired by aesthetics and the history of Islamic and Arab art and Middle East folk culture has been Marcus Abraham Mubarack<\/a>\u2019s (pictured above<\/em>) occupation since 2013. The artist of Arab descent who lives in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sull decided to print on his skin the themes he has been curious about since he was little. \u201cI studied History and Anthropology in college. I didn\u2019t graduate, but I\u2019ve always been extremely attached to it,\u201d recalled the tattoo artist.<\/p>\n

Mubarack remembers the puzzle he has been putting together to reconstruct his family\u2019s steps before they came to Brazil. On my father\u2019s side, they came from the border between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq in the early 1910s. \u201cI was putting together a few pieces of what each one told. What I know is my father\u2019s family came from this Ottoman region at the end of World War I. And my grandmother\u2019s family were refugees of the Assyrian genocide; they were Christians. Here, my grandmother met my grandfather, who was from Egypt,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n

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Middle Eastern folk culture has a strong influence on the artist\u2019s work<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Gramado, Rio Grande do Sul, where he was born, they were one of the few Arab families. \u201cAll over town, my father was [known as] the Turk. That part of the [Middle East] presents an amalgamation of things forming a unity of identity. Several groups overlap each other. But where we lived, I didn\u2019t have much contact with that. When I came to Porto Alegre, I met more people that came from the same context. Here, I was able to dig deeper because there is a mosque, an Arab restaurant,\u201d reveals the artist.<\/p>\n

History and Tattoo<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mubarack enrolled in the History major at a college in Novo Hamburgo and started researching artistic movements in the Middle East. During this period, he started working as a tattoo artist. \u201cI\u2019ve been drawing since I was a kid, but it was never my intention [to work with it]. I started tatting to pay for my studies,\u201d revealed Mubarack.<\/p>\n

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The artist also makes tribal-style tattoos from native peoples of Mesopotamia, such as the Kurds, Assyrians, and Yezidis<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The path towards arts had references within his family, with people working with embroidery, wood crafts, theater, and even gardening. Mubarack has also incorporated techniques and inspirations from mosaics, Arabic calligraphy, Arab arts, and Persian miniatures. \u201cOne thing I like about folk art is that it\u2019s a collective expression rather than an individual one. These are \u2018standard\u2019 things everyone knows about, but they don\u2019t have a single author. It is seen as collective art,\u201d he pointed out.<\/p>\n

Currently living and working in Porto Alegre, the artist usually visits other cities, such as S\u00e3o Paulo and Curitiba, where he works in partners\u2019 studios. \u201cBut I also work with painting and illustration. Like what I did for Des-oriente-se,\u201d he explains, mentioning the artwork he developed for the brand of the Brazilian page about the Middle East.<\/p>\n

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In addition to tattoos, Mubarack also produces illustrations<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The profile of those seeking Mubarack\u2019s tattoos is varied. From professors and scholars of Human Sciences to people captivated by the aesthetics of his works. The illustrations are made available to even more people.<\/p>\n

In S\u00e3o Paulo, the artist partners with Galeria Estranho, an art gallery that reproduces and sells his illustrations in high-quality fine art print formats. \u201cThe cool thing is they do this work of dissemination and sale even abroad. There is a lot of demand abroad. I see there are a lot of buyers from Iran. There are also many artistic collectives in Lebanon, and Palestinians and people from the diaspora who follow my work too,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

Contemporary inspirations<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The works are for sale in S\u00e3o Paulo, in partnership with Galeria Estranho<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The tattoo artist\u2019s influences are even more far-reaching. Among contemporary Arab artists inspiring the Brazilian are the Palestinians Burhan Karkoutly and Sliman Mansour; Iraqis Afifa Aleiby, Hayv Kahraman, Wassma Al-Agha, Mahoud Ahmed, Faisal Laibi Sahi, Esther Elia; in addition to Syrian Louay Kayali, and Yemeni Hakim Al-Akel.<\/p>\n

In his works, there are illustrations inspired by materials from political campaigns to children\u2019s books. \u201cThe region there, as in Iraq, is very multicultural. It was the world\u2019s knowledge center, and I think it\u2019s really cool artists bring that up a lot. It\u2019s cool to bring this to tattoos, which are seen as something more popular. It\u2019s a way of appropriating a culture that is mine too,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

Translated by El\u00fasio Brasileiro<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marcus Abraham Mubarack, a tattoo artist of Arab descent, is a history student and found a way to illustrate traditional arts in his career as a tattoo artist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2324,"featured_media":303243,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[9649,6808,31118,26012,26017,591,15533,26018,2063,26016,26013,26019,10626,10536,9611,26015,26014],"class_list":{"0":"post-303267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"tag-arab-en","9":"tag-arabe-en-2","10":"tag-arte-islamica-2-en","11":"tag-eastern-art","12":"tag-gaucho-en","13":"tag-iraq","14":"tag-islamic-art","15":"tag-marcus-abraham-mubarack-en","16":"tag-middle-east","17":"tag-middle-east-art","18":"tag-middle-east-folklore","19":"tag-mubarack-en","20":"tag-oriente-medio-ar","21":"tag-siria-en","22":"tag-syria-en","23":"tag-tattoo","24":"tag-tattoo-artist"},"wps_subtitle":"Marcus Abraham Mubarack, a tattoo artist of Arab descent, is a history student and found a way to illustrate traditional arts in his career as a tattoo artist.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2324"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}