ABOVE: Detail from Esam Pasha’s Tears of Wax (2003), which will be part of a new show of contemporary Iraqi art opening this week in New York.

A New York gallery specializing in Middle Eastern art will open a new show of recent Iraqi art on Wednesday, Al Jazeera reports. “Ashes to Art: The Iraqi Phoenix” will show at the Pomegranate Gallery (which doesn’t even have a website - horrors!) until February 22. The exhibit is meant to highlight the work of Iraqi artists—some still in Iraq, others expatriate—confronting the country’s post-liberation reality.

After decades of tight government control over galleries and art shows that forced much of the Iraqi contemporary art scene underground or out of the country altogether, the ten artists represented in Ashes to Art say that even as the country continues to be wracked by sectarian violence, art is blossoming again, and the country’s artists are finally allowed to speak openly about the Hussein regime and its grim effects on Iraqi society.

LINK: Al Jazeera > New York to host Iraq art exhibition