A socially and politically committed artist, Dia al Azzawi’s work is nourished by popular culture and folkloric mythologies, contemporary wars and the violence embedded in the history of Iraq. Halfway between fig­u­ra­tive and abstract, his work is at the same time ref­er­en­tial and dec­o­ra­tive, expres­sive and open, as is seen in “From Akka (Palestine) death came to Tal el Zaatar” (Lebanon). This work is part of a series that memorializes a massacre of Palestinians that was published in “Illustrated poems for Tel el Zaatar” with text by Moroccan writer, Tahar Ben Jelloun.