In cities shaped by years of conflict, Iraqi artist Mukhaled Habeeb works directly with the physical traces that violence leaves behind. Rather than erasing or covering them, he approaches these marks as material, fragile records of memory that can be re-read through art.

His ongoing “Bullet Transformation Project” begins with something usually overlooked: bullet holes embedded in walls, facades, and urban surfaces. Instead of treating them as damage to be repaired, Habeeb integrates them into subtle visual compositions that allow the original impact to remain present, while shifting its meaning entirely. What once signaled rupture becomes part of a quieter visual language.

His interventions are intentionally restrained. Using minimal gestures, clean lines, geometric structures, occasional figurative suggestions, he activates each surface without overwhelming it. The work sits in a careful tension: nothing is hidden, nothing is exaggerated. The existing wound stays visible, but is reframed into something that invites reflection rather than rupture.

Within the regional art landscape, Habeeb’s practice is sometimes compared to street artists like Banksy, particularly in its use of public space as a site of commentary. Yet his approach is more grounded in local memory and lived experience, shaped by the realities of Iraq and the wider region rather than global street-art tropes.

By transforming remnants of violence into composed, almost quiet interventions, “Bullet Transformation Project” proposes another way of looking. It suggests that even the most charged surfaces of the city can hold space for reinterpretation, where damage is not simply an ending, but a point from which new meaning can slowly emerge.

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