GALLERY
Welcome to the Virtual Gallery of Iraqi ceramic artist Wisam Alsamad. This Gallery spans from 2005 to the present, showcasing the artistic journey of Wisam Alsamad.
Wisam has developed a unique style that combines contemporary artistic elements with visual exploration, experimentation, and adventure. His signature technique is characterized by a distinctive crosshatch texture, and more recently the overarching theme of his work is "Love".
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Dance of Aurora
Dance of the Aurora is a suspended ceramic installation consisting of 20 unique sculptures in round form. Each piece is hand-modeled in stoneware clay and treated with different pigments, oxides, and glazes, giving every form its own distinct character.
The installation invites reflection on nature’s order, human relationships, and how wholeness emerges from the diversity of parts. While each sculpture carries its own tone and individuality, a recurring light turquoise color ties the work together. This hue evokes associations with water, rivers, the aurora borealis, or natural energy flows, a color that points toward life, movement, and hope.
Through its variety of colors and shapes, a sense of community arises, mirroring the complexity of both nature and humanity. When meeting the light, the installation reveals a play between glossy and matte surfaces: the glossy sections reflect like stars or glimmers on water, while the matte areas add depth and tranquility.
The work is arranged so that the sculptures move gently in the air, creating a dynamic and shifting expression. The installation never appears static but changes with the light, the space, and the viewer’s position.
Galaxy of Turquoise
As you stand before this ceramic wall installation, your eyes are drawn to 40 circular units, each varying in size. They're arranged like stars across a galaxy, inviting you to pause and explore the space between them. Every circle is shaped from one of four distinct types of clay, each representing a season: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Within each season, the diversity of ten sizes adds rhythm and balance.
You’ll notice that all the elements are glazed in different shades of turquoise. For the artist, this color holds personal meaning. If you grew up in Iraq, as the artist did, turquoise might remind you of warmth and tradition. But here in Norway, it shifts as it evokes fjords, snow, and the northern lights. By using turquoise, the artist invites you to witness a meeting of two landscapes and two lives: Mesopotamia and Norway through a shared hue.
As you look closer, you’ll see that each circle includes an unglazed section, echoing the soft, wavy contours of Norway’s countryside. This contrast between glossy glaze and raw clay gives the work a living texture, where nature and material speak to one another.
Step back, and you might see more than just ceramics. You might see how the distance between the circles mimics the stars above you and how this artwork draws a quiet connection between the rhythms of the earth and the vastness of the universe.
Track of Love
This ceramic art collection draws its inspiration from the mesmerizing colors of the northern lights, with hues that dance across each piece like nature’s own poetry. Shades of green, echoing the life-giving force of nature, are prominent in several of the works, inviting viewers to reflect on the connection between love and the natural world.
Each artwork features a unique synonym for love in Arabic, elegantly inscribed, honoring the emotional and linguistic richness of the word across cultures. Tiny openings in every piece symbolize windows, echoing the simple yet profound reason every human dwelling has one: to let in light, air, and oxygen. These elements are essential to our survival, just as love is essential to our emotional and spiritual well-being.
The forms are softly curved, and when arranged together, the pieces form a flowing path, which is an abstract journey representing the ups and downs of life. This pathway speaks to the challenges, growth, and resilience needed to reach one’s destination, mirroring the course of love itself.
Adorning the dots in the Arabic letters is a touch of gold luster that is signifying the value, beauty, and weight of love. Gold here is not mere ornamentation but a reminder that love, like gold, is precious and requires effort, sacrifice, and shared responsibility in any relationship. The art collection is both a visual and emotional journey: an invitation to walk through the poetic landscape of connection, commitment, and the enduring light that love brings into our lives.
Love... End of the World
This collection of 40 unique art pieces explores the profound and multifaceted nature of love through the lens of cultural synthesis. Each artwork carries an Arabic synonym for love, written in expressive calligraphy, intertwining meaning with form. The free-form shapes of each piece symbolize the unrestrained and boundless essence of love, inviting the viewer to contemplate its depth, complexity, and transformative power.
Crafted from light blue clay fired at stoneware temperature, the works exude an earthy yet ethereal presence. Embedded within some of the pieces are Norwegian petroglyphs, adding a historical dimension that connects ancient narratives to contemporary expression. This integration reflects a fusion of Middle Eastern cultural roots with Norwegian maritime heritage, drawing inspiration from elements of rain, wind, fish, forests, the sea, and water—each an essential force shaping both nature and human emotion.
Love, in its many forms—familial, platonic, and romantic—has been a central theme in the artist’s life. It represents both strength and vulnerability, bridging divides, breaking barriers, and uniting hearts across differences. The title, "Love ... The End of the World," challenges the audience to reflect on the extremities of love.
The Galaxy of Love
The Galaxy of Love is a mesmerizing collection of 18 individual art pieces, each carrying its own synonym for love in Arabic calligraphy. Every piece is sculpted into a rounded square form, each with a subtly unique shape while maintaining a uniform size. This balance of geometric precision and organic fluidity gives the composition a harmonious rhythm, inviting the viewer to explore both the collective and individual expressions of love. The calligraphy, inscribed in an intense, luminous green known as Supernova, acts as the unifying element, bringing cohesion to the diverse shapes and forms. Some pieces feature a cut semicircle, a thoughtful interruption of the uniformity. This break in shape introduces an intriguing geometric contrast and depth, suggesting the imperfect yet beautiful nature of love. The semicircle represents incompleteness, a reminder that love is ever-evolving and never fully contained. Additionally, this detail creates a dynamic interplay of light and shadow, reinforcing a sense of movement and change within the composition.
The surface of each piece is coated with a Glimmer glaze, producing an effect reminiscent of a starry sky. This celestial texture reinforces the title, evoking the idea that love, much like the cosmos, is vast, boundless, and radiant. The reflective nature of the glaze changes with the viewer’s perspective and lighting, adding a mystical depth that enhances the artwork’s immersive quality. The glimmering particles scattered across the surface mirror cosmic nebulae, bringing an ethereal quality to each piece. Adding to the richness of The Galaxy of Love is the incorporation of rose gold, a symbol of transformation, luxury, and deep emotional connection. Through its bold interplay of color, texture, and symbolism, The Galaxy of Love invites contemplation on love’s dual role as an infinite force and a grounding presence, celebrating love’s brilliance—how it endures, transforms, and connects us all in the vast expanse of human experience.
A Light From Mesopotamia
This collection of ceramic wall sculptures explores the tension and harmony between two cultural landscapes: ancient Mesopotamia and modern Norway. Drawing from the warmth of the Mesopotamian sun and the cool clarity of the Nordic light, each piece in this series becomes a poetic bridge between two worlds: the cradle of civilization and the calm of the north. The works are crafted from stoneware fired at 1220°C, combining four distinctive surface treatments: matt, semi-matt, glossy, and the raw natural tone of the clay. Each texture carries symbolic weight: matte surfaces ground us in the earthy roots of the past, glossy glazes reflect the vitality of the present, and the layering of finishes creates a visual rhythm akin to layered histories.
Each piece is fragmented, deliberately spaced with visible gaps to invite the viewer into an open-ended interpretation. The non-geometric, freeform silhouettes challenge traditional boundaries and suggest incomplete memories, ruins, or ancient tablets unearthed from the earth. Their organic outlines speak of fluidity rather than finality. The use of crosshatched markings evokes artifacts long buried beneath the Mesopotamian soil are echoes of empires and civilizations that once thrived. In contrast, the glazed inlays bring brightness, immediacy, and color, symbolizing renewal and continuity. This intentional interplay of rough and refined, past and present, becomes the visual signature of the artist.
Color plays a central role in the dialog: warm ochres, reds, and ambers recall the Mesopotamian palette of desert and sun, while cool turquoise, blue, and greys nod to the cold tones of Norway's sky and fjords. This chromatic contrast embodies a cultural duality: the sun always present in the south, while a cooler, introspective atmosphere defines the north. These are not just ceramic works; they are cultural artifacts of today, created with the memory of yesterday and the vision of tomorrow. Sculptural, architectural, and deeply personal, they invite viewers into a timeless, shifting narrative of identity, migration, and belonging.
The Path of Love
In this ceramic art installation, The Path of Love, twenty-eight unique sculptures are arranged in a flowing composition that resembles the meandering form of two rivers: the Tigris, which breathes through the heart of Mesopotamia, and the river in Stryn in Norway. These rivers, where one is warm and the other is cold, symbolize the duality of the artist’s identity and heritage and serve as a metaphor for love’s journey: winding, unpredictable, and transformative.
Each sculpture represents one synonym of love in Arabic. These are not simply linguistic variations but emotional states, each expressed through its own structural form, movement, and color. The Arabic letters, abstracted and untraditional, seem to float in space as if lifted by a gentle breeze, like fabric in the air, symbolizing the lightness, fragility, and transcendence of love.
The installation is made of stoneware clay fired at 1100°C. Surface textures vary between matte, glossy, and lustrous glazes, creating a tactile rhythm as one walks along the river of love. The diacritical dots of the Arabic script are adorned with a silver luster glaze, appearing as tiny celestial markers that guide the viewer’s gaze, like stars illuminating the night sky. Silver, symbolizing purity, clarity, and protection, enhances their quiet power. To Norwegians, it may evoke memories of ancient silver weapons and Viking-age coins; for those from the Middle East, it might recall the delicate beauty of traditional women’s jewelry and cultural heritage.
Some sculptures glimmer with glitter textures, reminiscent of galaxies, reminders that love is vast, universal, and cosmic. Others show roughness or asymmetry, representing sacrifice, pain, and the trials found on love’s winding route.
Though this path is not linear, it is purposeful. The spatial arrangement invites viewers to reflect on their own emotional journeys, where love, like water, flows through landscapes of joy, longing, heartbreak, and beauty.
Meet Love
This collection is a sculptural journey through the Arabic synonyms of love, delicately carved by removing clay to form the letterforms. Each letter is not added but revealed as if love itself has always existed, waiting to be uncovered. Suspended in space, the letters appear to float, embodying a celestial presence, love drifting in the cosmos. The forms themselves bend and curve, symbolizing the continuity of life and the flow of love across time and space. Each piece holds a duality: one part of the mountain-like texture evokes the cold, rugged beauty of Norwegian nature, while the other mirrors the warmth and texture of Mesopotamian landscapes: a dialogue between two homelands, one of origin and one of residence.
Varying shades of green wash across each mountain surface, emphasizing the diversity and layered meanings of love. No two shades are the same, just as no two loves are alike. The rose-gold circular dots shimmer gently, like celestial bodies or ancient coins, representing sacred markers of emotion, perhaps moments of divine connection, or the unspoken values we assign to love. Their placement is never random; they are aligned like constellations, guiding the viewer through each piece’s spiritual terrain.
Together, these pieces invite reflection on language, memory, migration, and emotion, where form, material, and meaning become one path of love.
Windows of The Soul
This collection was created during the global corona pandemic, a time when people were told to remain at home. In this isolation, our windows became our only opening to the outside world. They connected us to light, air, and oxygen, which are fundamental elements of sustaining life. Just as these elements are vital to our physical survival, love is essential for our emotional and spiritual well-being. At that time, these “windows” represented both necessity and hope.
Each ceramic piece in this collection carries small openings, symbolizing windows. These openings are not voids but portals of possibility, breathing life into the forms. The surfaces are enriched with Arabic calligraphy, seamlessly integrated into the clay itself. The letters remain in the original color of the clay body, emphasizing authenticity, grounding, and permanence.
Golden dots punctuate the calligraphic lines, becoming luminous highlights that draw the viewer’s gaze. They serve as metaphorical spotlights, signifying divine guidance, hope, and resilience amid uncertainty.
The curvatures of each form express movement, a deliberate contrast to static confinement. They embody the importance of flow, growth, and transformation, reminding us that even in stillness, there is a rhythm of life that continues.
Spirit of Geometric
This art collection is composed of hexagonal ceramic pieces, each intricately carved and painted with Arabic calligraphy and symbolic motifs. At the heart of the collection are the tiny openings embedded within every piece, evoking the image of windows. Created during the time of the corona pandemic, these windows stand as metaphors for hope and survival. While people were confined to their homes, windows became the vital portals to light, air, and oxygen, as these are elements as essential as love is to human emotional and spiritual well-being.
The hexagonal form of each piece recalls the structured perfection of nature, seen in honeycombs and snowflakes, symbolizing harmony and universal design. This natural geometry grounds the work in a sense of order amidst the chaos of the pandemic.
The inspiration for the collection also stems from Shanasheel, which are the traditional projecting windows of old Baghdad. These architectural features, with their ornate woodwork and unique patterns, are deeply tied to the city’s identity and atmosphere. In this collection, Shanasheel are reimagined through modern elements, enriched with vibrant colors and dynamic contrasts. They serve as both homage to the artist’s home city and as a bridge between heritage and contemporary expression.
The Arabic calligraphy is presented in the original clay body color, merging material authenticity with cultural depth. Gold dots, delicately embedded within the designs, further enhance the surfaces, referencing the decorative qualities of Shanasheel while adding a luminous, spotlight effect.
Back To The Roots
The artist’s work brings together two powerful cultural traditions: Mesopotamian and Old Norse. From Mesopotamia, he draws on the use of clay and light colors, carrying forward the feeling of ancient craftsmanship. From the Old Norse world, he incorporates Norwegian petroglyphs and the shifting light of the Northern Lights, creating a striking dialogue between the two histories.
His practice is also shaped by contemporary ideas, where modern forms and shapes are woven into the work. Having made Norway his home, the artist reflects his deep connection to its culture in subtle details throughout his art. The artist’s creations move beyond borders, combining heritage with the landscape and spirit of Norway in a way that feels both personal and universal.
Magic of Laster
This collection combines geometric structures with flowing natural forms, using different types of clay for each piece. The surfaces show both precision and movement, where straight lines and measured shapes meet the softer rhythm of waves and mountains.
The use of luster colors gives the works a glowing depth, shifting between light and shadow as the viewer moves around them. Each piece carries its own texture and tone, highlighting the character of the clay it was made from.
Arabic calligraphy appears within the surfaces, carefully integrated into the design so that the written word and the clay body become one. This gives the works both a visual and spiritual presence.
The wave-like forms and mountain shapes are inspired by the landscapes of Norway, suggesting movement, growth, and the connection between the land and human experience.
Together the pieces show a meeting point between tradition and nature, geometry and organic flow, text and material.
Love Tracks
“Love Tracks” is a ceramic wall work that reflects cultural diversity and the meeting of traditions. The work is inspired by traditional artistic expressions from the Middle East and combined with Norwegian petroglyphs, creating a bridge between past and present, between different cultures and heritages.
Arabic calligraphy appears across the surfaces, each piece carrying synonyms of love in Arabic. The dots that form part of the Arabic letters are highlighted with luster gold. These shimmering details become luminous points across the composition, creating both rhythm and symbolic strength, like a glowing pathway running through the work.
Norwegian petroglyphs are a central element, serving as a tribute to the cultural heritage of Norway. The combination of Mesopotamian influence and Norwegian tradition creates a dialogue across time and geography, emphasizing how ancient civilizations used art and symbols to record life, belief, and human experience.
Through this interplay, “Love Tracks” expresses a deep respect for different cultural heritages and invites the viewer to reflect on love, history, and diversity as shared values that continue to connect humanity.
Alphabet of The Gold Clay
Alphabet of Gold Clay is a collection where clay is treated as a language of its own. The artist sees clay as something that can communicate through its textures, its different types, and the many methods used to shape it. In this way, clay speaks with a voice that is silent yet expressive, and its alphabet holds the same value as gold.
Each artwork is built around geometry and composition. A shape is placed inside another, creating harmony between the two while forming new abstract shapes. This approach allows the artist to innovate through structure and explore how fresh forms can emerge from within existing ones. The touch of gold in every piece links directly to the title and gives each work a sense of depth and meaning.
Some of the pieces are split into two parts to open possibilities for new shapes and fresh perspectives. The outer forms are intentionally open and incomplete, while the inner forms are whole and centered. This balance between what is finished and what is left open gives each piece its own rhythm and movement.
Arabic calligraphy is part of every artwork. Through this, the artist brings together the language of clay and the written word. The art collection invites reflection on how texture, form, and calligraphy can all communicate. Each piece carries its own voice and energy, forming a visual alphabet where clay expresses both artistic creation and thoughtful reflection.
Tell Us, Gibran
Tell Us, Gibran is a ceramic art collection inspired by the philosopher Khalil Gibran, known for his thoughts on freedom, love, life, and wisdom. Each piece carries one of his quotes, as if he himself is speaking through the clay.
The Arabic calligraphy is written in the old Kufi script and built with a 3D texture that allows light to cast gentle shadows on the surface. The letters are made from red earthenware, expressing the warmth and spirit of the Middle Eastern desert, while the backgrounds are formed in brown clay tones that resemble the earthy colors often seen in Scandinavian landscapes.
The use of clay reflects the artist’s deep connection to Mesopotamian traditions and the beauty of language carved into material form. Subtle symbols inspired by Norwegian petroglyphs and darker tones connect the works to the Northern environment, giving each piece a grounded yet timeless character.
The forms are abstract to reflect Gibran’s ideas, where thought, emotion, and freedom have no fixed shape. The combination of materials, texture, and script gives each artwork its own rhythm, allowing the clay to speak and the words to carry meaning beyond language.
The Earth is My Mosque
This art collection presents the 99 Names of Allah through a series of circular ceramic forms. Each piece carries Arabic calligraphy written in Kufi style that is unique to the artist, shaped with a three-dimensional texture that allows light and shadows to move softly across the surface, giving depth and presence to every name.
The circle serves as a central form as they represent the earth, unity, and the continuous cycle of life. Within this repetition of form, no two circles are identical; each has its own tone and character, reflecting the endless beauty and diversity within divine creation.
The colors hold a close connection to the blue tones often found in Middle Eastern art and architecture, symbolizing calmness, spirituality, and the boundless sky. These hues interact with browns, creams, and warm clay colors, grounding the pieces while giving a sense of harmony between heaven and earth.
Together, the collection speaks of rhythm, faith, and the quiet balance between form, color, and meaning. Each circle becoming a reflection of one of Allah’s divine attributes.
Baghdad... Point of All The Letters
Each piece carries its own depth and rhythm, with sculpted layers that rise and fall, creating a three-dimensional relief. Some pieces are dense and compact, while others open up with wider spaces, almost breathing through their structure.
The texture carries the memory of Baghdad’s past: the city’s worn walls, sunlit bricks, and the layered history that shaped its people. Subtle marks and traces resemble the surfaces of old streets and ancient patterns from the artist’s roots. The colors draw from Baghdad’s warmth: soft earth tones, copper, rose, and blue glazes that shift like the city at sunset.
Every shape feels like a fragment of something larger, as if each piece speaks of both the artist’s personal story and the enduring spirit of the place he comes from.
Memory of Spirit
This art collection is built upon the discipline of form and balance, where every piece begins from the simplicity of a square and expands into abstraction through the division of space. The artist breaks the geometric boundary to construct new relationships between form, surface, and shadow.
Each artwork carries an Arabic synonym of love, expressed in bold calligraphic structures that interact with the texture of clay. The golden dots represent the diacritical marks of the letters, adding warmth and rhythm to each composition.
Bronze is present in every piece, tying the collection together with a unified tone and material presence.
The textured surfaces resemble the aged walls and earth of ancient civilizations, grounding the theme of love as something that has always existed: rooted in the past yet still alive in the human soul today. These ceramic works breathe with a timeless spirit, showing that love, like clay, endures through every era it touches.
One Thousand & One Cups
This ceramic collection is a study of simplicity and balance. The artist moved away from elaborate sculptural forms to focus on the bowl, which is one of the most timeless and universal shapes. Each piece carries a synonym of love written in Arabic, lightly carved into the clay so that the letters live within the form rather than sit upon it. Small silver dots mark parts of the script, catching light and adding quiet depth.
The choice of color in every bowl is intentional, reflecting the emotional tone of the specific synonym. The glazes range from deep reds and blues to earthy browns and soft neutrals, each emphasizing a different mood of affection, warmth, and serenity.
Together, the series expresses harmony between cultures and aesthetics, bridging the Middle Eastern script with a minimalist Scandinavian sensibility. It was first presented at the Ariana Museum in Geneva before traveling to other international venues as part of the project 1001 Cups, which is a global exhibition celebrating the diversity of contemporary ceramic expression through the shared form of the cup.
The Beauty & Brightness of The Circle
A visionary in ceramic art, Wisam seamlessly blends tradition and innovation. His pieces, characterized by warm, smooth surfaces and intricate geometric circular patterns, reflect a harmonious synthesis of creativity and technology.
Inspired by Islamic philosophy, the art transcends time, fusing the spiritual essence of the past with contemporary influences. In Europe, a revitalization of ancient civilizations unfolds through vibrant colors and Arabic calligraphy. Wisam's ongoing projects promise to push the boundaries of his already remarkable achievements.
Pains of Mud
In Wisam's perspective, clay becomes a canvas for an extraordinary artistic journey, where each form and hue reflects a mastery that surpasses conventional limits. The art pieces in this collection transcend the ordinary, embodying surprise, excitement, and pure fantasy. With deliberate pauses and profound exploration of mystical symbols, Wisam invites contemplation and sparks curiosity, unveiling interpretations that captivate and astonish onlookers. His relentless pursuit of innovation extends beyond traditional boundaries, embracing unique materials, shapes, and techniques that set his work apart from the ordinary.
Unconstrained by convention, Wisam fearlessly employs inventive methods, ensuring that each piece is a testament to his commitment to pushing artistic frontiers. The infusion of Arabic calligraphy adds an extra layer of depth, enriching his creations with cultural significance and a touch of the extraordinary. The art collection is a direct testament to boundless creativity and a dedication to shaping truly remarkable and distinctive pieces.