About Us

PAKD Gallery Berlin is artist-led and artist-run, and is committed to bringing a new way of programming artists and their work. Founded by an international collective of four artists, we provide a platform for exhibitions, workshops, courses, talks, and cultural events. Our mission is to support emerging artists locally and abroad and foster creativity and collaboration within the community. Artists and visiting curators who will exhibit with us are selected through the blind, peer review process. Integral to our identity, this process aims to eliminate any politics involved in the gallery selection methods and maintain a high caliber of artistry and programming. And once selected, the artist becomes part of the ever-expanding voting roster.

Team

Peter Kasim

Bachelor of Arts: Illustration, University of Westminster
Postgraduate Diploma: Character Animation, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London
Beneficiary of Scholarship: London Fine Art Studio Next Generation Fund

Peter Najad Kasim is a Professional 2D and 3D Character Animator, Art Tutor and classically trained draftsman and oil painter.

Since childhood Peter has been fascinated by the representation of character and life through art, leading him into a career in character animation where he worked on films and video game projects including The Hobbit Trilogy, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Disney’s Jungle Book remake and Grand Theft Auto 5.

Peter sees his animation and traditional art practice as interconnected and symbiotic in nature. Working in oil and charcoal serves as a developmental exercise as well as therapeutic endeavor, allowing for pure observational practice without reliance upon digital tools and their associated complexity.

In 2018 Peter was proud to be beneficiary of the Next Generation Fund at London Fine Art Studios in recognition of his efforts in charcoal drawing and oil painting. The tuition he received there serves as the basis for his technique and was transformative in his practice. He also studied directly under master portrait painter Alex Tsavaras who still serves as an inspiration for his oil painting.

Peter’s work

Alex Anderson

Alex Anderson is an artist from the United States. He earned his B.A. in art history from John Cabot University in Rome, minoring in philosophy. His studies brought him into contact with contemporary art and art criticism, the final catalyst for his decision to pursue visual art professionally. From 2015 until its closure, Alex was contributing arts writer for KCMetropolis.Org in Kansas City. He sees his effort to create and write about others’ works as a way of life that he hopes inspires and helps others. In the past he has enjoyed assisting students in the execution of their work as a studio assistant while developing his own portfolio.

In fall of 2020 Alex completed a Master of Letters in Sculpture at The Glasgow School of Art in Scotland. There he began making work in reaction to the stones on the foreshores of tidal lochs on the Isle of Skye. Currently he makes work in response to the Sonoran Desert landscape of the USA, and the coastal landscapes and dunes of Northeastern Brazil. His interests centre upon sculptural art practices and investigations of landscapes in relation to memory, climate science, classic literature, poetry, and phenomenology. Focusing on wind and the concept of nostos (νόστος).: he explores the grief of homecoming, the arduousness of the journey, and the bittersweetness felt at actually arriving, in addition to the many interpretations, functions, and uses of wind.

Alex shares a studio and gallery space in the West Bottoms of Kansas City called 3 West. In co-founding PAKD Gallery Berlin, he is eager to participate and offer his skills in an artist run, artist led space that operates upon principles he believes is a way forward for a supportive artistic environment and gallery model.

Kifan Alkarjousli

Born in Hazzah, Syria, Kifan Alkarjousli’s early life was steeped in the cultural heritage of his homeland. He marks the third generation of artists in his family. His grandfather was a sculptor, and his aunts and uncles studied art, creating an environment that nurtured his passion from a young age.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Damascus in Swidaa in 2014. Forced into displacement in 2015, Kifan emigrated due to Syrian Civil War. By 2018, his migration halted, having arrived in Berlin as a refugee. Here, Kifan continued his education, taking a master’s degree in Art Education from Universität der Künste Berlin.

For two and a half years, Kifan owned and operated the Werkkunststudio, a successful art studio and gallery in Wedding, Berlin. There he nurtured the talents of other aspiring artists while also using the space as his own studio.

His work points toward to the frailty of memory, and the understated beauty within the everyday, or commonplace. His paintings and sculptures inspire reflection on impermanence, and subtlety of human experience. Merging his own distinct style of realism and symbolism, he handles a delicate combination of themes regarding migration, identity, memory, love, and loss. The works’ contents are imbued with Syrian symbolism and iconography; all reference to his upbringing, displacement, and recent integration into German/Berlin life.

Kifan leads numerous drawing and painting workshops throughout Berlin, sharing his expertise in a wish to foster the vibrant artist community. Building on his experience and successes, Kifan expanded his vision together with three other artists, co-founding PAKD Gallery in Berlin. His life and career lends well to the creation of a space suited to showcase a diverse range of artists with an emphasis on cultural exchange. And he approaches this with an acute awareness of the difficulties one faces in achieving their aims artistically, or otherwise.

Dani Hasrouni

Dani Hasrouni is a visual artist from Syria. He received his Bachelor's degree in Visual Communications from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Damascus in 2013. His multidisciplinary work spans art, design, photography, and calligraphy. Additionally, he has been concerned with the documentation and preservation of the diverse facets of Syrian cultural heritage, with emphasis place upon its modern developments.

Immediately after his formal studies, Dani was appointed by the dean of the academy as a substitute lecturer where he taught first year students in the Visual Communications department. His career has broadened beyond his own work. Extensive practise in his fields as well as his personal experience has made him acutely aware of art’s transformative and healing potential. He has facilitated workshops for child refugees from Syria and has organized other similar workshops with friends in Damascus, amongst other cities. In these workshops, art was implemented as a therapeutic tool to address the psychological after effects of war.

In 2016 Dani moved to Berlin. Immersed in the city's pulse and cultural scene, his interests expanded into street photography, and an exploration of themes such as diversity and innovation within urban spaces. Additionally, he is working on a long-term documentary film project that illuminates multiple narratives through street musicians, and uncovers their rich and diverse stories as part of the fabric of Berlin's cultural melting pot.

Dani currently works at one of Berlin's well-known communal art galleries, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, which has deepened his understanding of the city's cultural landscape in both practical and conceptual terms. And now, in co-founding PAKD Gallery Berlin, Dani looks forward to extending his expertise in sustaining a platform designed to assist more artists, musicians, and cultural practitioners on their journey of positive change and contribution.