Afifa Aleiby
Painter
Afifa Aleiby is an Iraqi artist who was born in the city of Basra, in the utmost southern part of Iraq. She took up her studies at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad while working as an illustrator for the Iraqi press, before leaving Iraq for the Soviet Union in 1974
Afifa Aleiby was born in Basra, Iraq in 1953.
After finishing school, she moved to Baghdad to study at the Fine Arts Institute, while working as an illustrator for a newspaper.
In 1974 she received a scholarship to study Monumental Art at the renowned Surikov Institute in Moscow.
During the 1980's she lived in Rome and Florence in Italy and briefly taught at the Fine Arts Institute in Aden, Yemen before moving and settling in the Netherlands in the late 1990's.
She has lived in exile since leaving Iraq for Moscow, and returned to her homeland for the first time in 2004.
She lives and works near The Hague in the Netherlands.
