By Wafer Shayota

Children of War, 1992

Ethnic Cleansing, 1992

Wafer Shayota was born in 1959 in Nineveh, Iraq. While studying in Baghdad in the mid-1970s, he was immersed in the ideas and projections of Arab nationalism, which were later reinforced in Egypt where he resided for two years. After moving to Egypt in 1978, Shayota exhibited with fellow Iraqi artists who had established an artistic community. During the late 1980s and early 90s, after immigrating to the United States, Shayota once again found an artistic community of émigrés, comprised of Arab and Chaldean artists residing in the Metropolitan Detroit area. He received an MFA from Wayne State University in 1995 and, most recently, was a teacher within the Detroit school system.