Visual Diaries

Artist biography

Faris Alsaffar was born in Baghdad in 1964.

He started drawing at an early age and continued
teaching himself illustration until he had his first
show of realistic drawings in 1983 at the university
of technology campus in Baghdad-Iraq

In 1984 he had a second show of caricature drawings
and in
1985 he had another cartoon show of social and
philosophical issues.

In1986 he had his 4th show and He represented the
university as an artist in the Arab Gulf Universities
festival.

In 1987 he had his 5th show dealing with similar
subject matter.

In 1992 he was granted political asylum status in the U.S.A and decided to persue art
as a profession.

In 1994 studied animation at the cartoonist union and at
Rowland animation school.

In 1995 hired as a special effects artist at Walt
Disney feature animation studios to work on 3 feature
films ..The Hunchback of Notredame, Hercules, The
legend of Mulan.

While working at Disney he studied Design at Art
Center, Production Design at UCLA and learned
illustration at the David Passalaqua school in New
York City.

In 2000 he was trained on multimedia graphics at
Multimedia Center in Encino. At the same time he also
worked as an artist at Screen & Friends doing web
animation.

In 2000-2001 he taught Art at the City of Glendale
Parks & recreations.

In 2002-2003 he designed and illustrated one of Los
Angeles's land marks for a personal project.

From 2003 to the present he has been illustrating stories of Iraqi folk tales.