You need to go back to page number “13” to not understand anything, and, 2023

Oil on canvas
165 × 315 cm

In the painting You need to go back to page number “13” to not understand anything, and (2023), Ali Eyal depicts a proposal to rebuild an uncle’s farmhouse south of Baghdad, destroyed in the turmoil of the war and invasion in Iraq. Eyal imagines inviting famous architects to rebuild the property, its kitchen or living room, and the different parts of the lost house. The painting depicts several architects at work, engaged in their imaginations and coming up with new designs. Among the details of the home, one also discovers the surrounding landscape and the farmland.

In the scene’s center, a character with the number 10 on his shirt appears as a football player. Just as the children in the street play ball, this mysterious man is also playing with a child, but it looks as if he is about to cut the ball. As always in Eyal’s imagery, the fragments take center stage: hands, shoes, details of peasant work, and spectators. The large head inside which the scaled-down staging takes place is the head of one of the architects, narrator and enabler of a new creation.