Aniwar Mamat was born in Kashgar, Xinjiang province, China in 1962. In 1980 he graduated from Tianjin Institute of Art and Design in Tianjin, China. In 1988 he graduated from the oil painting department of the Central Institute of National Minorities in Beijing, China. He is a current professor at the School of Arts and Design in Beijing. He has exhibited widely in China and the United States.
Read More'In his paintings, various cultural motifs from the artist's Uighur background are employed and the theme of the desert is also dominant. Aniwar documents not only his personal visions, but a tension created by the dichotomies between Xinjiang and Beijing, the oasis and the city. Such a tension is visible in the paintings of many artists in exile, such as Marc Chagall, but the sensuality created by this tension is unique to the works of Aniwar.' - Asia Art Archive