CONCORD, NH – On a recent late summer morning Concord-based artist Saad Hindal, walked through a narrow hallway that opened into a doorway of his memories from Iraq. Inside is his studio that smells of stale coffee, cigarettes and paint.
As we speak the sound of his wife’s footsteps thump on the floor above.
“She is a homemaker and loves to cook,” Hindal said.
Hindal, 60, left a war-torn Iraq in 2008 to resettle in the U.S. to seek a better life for himself. He spent three months in Chicago, after which he relocated to Concord.
“This is home now,” Hindal said of New Hampshire. “This is where my family, my four children and two grandchildren are.”
Hindal, a lifelong artist, connected with local people in Concord upon his arrival more than a decade ago who helped him resettle and helped him continue his passion to create art in the Granite State. With the help of the local community, Hindal hosted his first art show in Concord in 2009.
“I sold out completely,” he said, “It felt like all these people had paid for me to stay in New Hampshire.”
He mentions that it was a book he read during his time in Iraq that prompted him to settle in Concord.
“I read a book, whose name I cannot recall. It said New Hampshire was a great place for artists,” Hindal said, something he’s found to be true— he says the peace, quiet and bucolic setting of New Hampshire inspires him to keep painting.
And that’s what his art mostly is—an amalgam of his life in the Middle East coupled with the daily happenings of New Hampshire.
Hindal creates his pieces with bright colors and abstract designs that speak to his heart as an Iraqi and represent the mundane reality of life—from city streets and sceneries to his Islamic faith.
“It’s all a memory arc,” he said of his art. “I paint everything from my heart.”
Now a renowned name in the art community, Hindal is creating a mural for Concord Parks and recreation, which depicts all forms of summer fun in New Hampshire. His work is also on display at community-loved coffee shop, Brother’s Cortado, in Concord’s Bicentennial Square.
With a limited fluency in English, Hindal believes that his art is his best friend, and takes him down a memory lane of a home long-lost, he said, as he pointed to a giant painting representing a chaotic cityscape of his home city.
“This is the center of Baghdad,”he said. “I come from Arab culture. Creating art is good for me. It is good for my mental health. I feel relaxed when I create art.”
Hindal has never received any formal training in art—although he himself teaches art to adults every now and then in the community—and believes that he was destined to create art by God.
“God made everything beautiful,” he said. “He made Iraq very beautiful. He made Concord beautiful. It all depends on how you view things.”
For Hindal, the routine is simple—wake up and paint as much as God desires.
“Sometimes I sit for long stretches, and just paint, paint, and paint,” he said. “Today, I am working on a smaller piece, and might end around five.”
When not touring to display his work, or creating new art, Hindal loves to go on walks in the neighborhood near his studio.. Intrigued by the window designs in Concord, he loves to capture cats perched outside window sills in the city in some of his paintings.
“I love cats,” he said. “At one point I had six all at once, and they would watch me paint.”
With all that said about Hindal’s appreciation for New Hampshire, the one thing he admits he strongly dislikes about the state is its harsh winter.
What does he do to escape it?
He flies off to Alexandria, Egypt, where Hindal has a home and a second studio.
“I go to Egypt in the winter,” he said. “It’s not that expensive and the weather is great.”
Hindal regularly tours around the state’s art festivals to show his work, which is also available online on his website to purchase.
One of his future stops is going to be the Manchester Citywide Arts Festival, scheduled from Sept. 7-13 on Hanover Street. Read more about the festival here.
“I don’t know what I am taking to that show yet,” he said, looking around his studio stacked with framed paintings all over the walls. “This is all my creation.”