"A main theme for Ghani was the life and pursuits of simple people, which he captured in stylized sculptures done largely in wood. In the late sixties, he did many semi-abstracted figures representing men and women derived in form from the shapes of Baghdadi graves and tombstones; there was in them a sense of life and fortitude, a rejection of the premonitions of death. In working on them the artist reaffirmed the necessity of drawing upon traditional local forms, employing their symbolic associations in addition to their purely structural motifs"

- Jabra Ibrahim Jabra