Syrian Artist: Sara Shamma

 

Having lost my focus this week, mostly because I am royally pissed off at feeling afraid and feeling helpless---a feeling many Europeans may have-- and also feeling very angry and frustrated at the passive, disinterest and massive incompetence of the Belgian government, I decided to examine my circumstances. Far better than most, obviously. And, as though an external force wanted me to direct my narrow-eyed self-interestedness outward, and direct it to those who have it far, far worse, I found the work of the Artist Sara Shamma while browsing Harpaar's Bazaar, Arabia.  

 

 

 

Pensive faces, babies, lots of babies, adults curled into the fetal position, the ravage of distress embedded into the lines of the cheek, forehead and a wry, angry curl of the lip and sinister characters lurking in the background, are common features of Sara Shamma's oil on canvas paintings. You can actually track the evolution of her work from around 2007 to now and see how the subject of her work has evolved--it gets more distressing, calamitous and jarring the more you approach 2015. Sara painted through some of the nights in Damascus when the bombs rocked her, and her child's small frame. She has managed to find refuge in Lebanon. And one can only hope that she and her daughter remain safe-- though they certainly would not have escaped the mental anguish and terror of war.

 

An artist has painted her distress and the fear she holds for her child for all to see. A most poignant and honest display of her feelings on the subject of the conflict in her homeland.

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