watercolour on paper

Kites and Shattered Dreams: Sabiha and Innam 28x28cm 2007

Kites and Shattered Dreams: An'nousa & Um An'nousa 24x28cm 2007

Kites and Shattered Dreams: Eman & Manal 25x30cm 2007

Arouss w Um al-Arouss (Bride & Mother of the Bride) 16x13cm 2004

From Weeping Palms: Stolen Childhoods, a series of paintings made in response to the war on Iraq, where dreams of becoming a bride or the mother of the bride are continually shattered and destroyed. At the start I was painting small works using water colour on paper. With the situation back home escalating into more horror, violence, destruction and despair I turned to larger works using oils on canvas. Trauma and tragedy permeates life back home at its core. Nothing has been spared, even our precious Date Palms suffer. Despite them being worn and withered, they remain resilient, tall, proud and ever so graceful. I have given each painting the name of an Iraqi woman, in tribute to her ongoing struggle and enormous sacrifice. In water colours please meet...

Um Amer 22x17cm 2004

Um Amer is my aunt. She continues to live in Baghdad till present. Despite the horrific state back home, she risks her life to call us from a telephone exchange to relieve our worry and reassure us that they have survived another day of death, destruction, lawlessness
and despair.

Um Ali 17x14cm 2004

Almost every Iraqi household has an Ali and/or an Um Ali. Almost every Um Ali I know is in mourning either for her Ali or another loved one. War, sanctions and more war have taken their toll on every Iraqi household and continue to do so explicitly. Is endless pain and suffering our fate? How much can one endure? Is it total apathy we are now facing?

Firdaws 22x17cm 2004

Firyal and Firdawas were two beautiful sisters in our neighborhood in Baghdad during the mid 1970s. They lived with their six brothers in a house renowned for its most fruitful orange trees. From the care-free, fun-loving spirits they were to the grief struck sisters they became when one of their brothers was killed in the Iraq/Iran war of the 1980s; I wonder how many of them survived Iraq's sanctions of the 1990s, ensuing wars and today's violence. I also wonder if their orange trees still blossom or indeed still exist.

Um Sa'adi 17x28cm 2004

Um Saadi was our next door neighbour, a simple peasant woman who occupied the nearby Serrifa (mud huts) when I lived in Iraq in the 1970s. She used to bring her little boy Saadi to play with my then little boy Amir. She would take the opportunity to share the events of her simple and hard yet content life. I often think of them boy and am terrified to imagine what they now face if indeed they have survived bombs, explosions, kidnapping, torture, sheer terror and more war.

Hurriya (Freedom: also a woman's name)17x28cm 2004

Zaineb 22x17cm 2004

Zaineb is the name of the sister of Imam Hussain (pbus), the grandson of the Profit Mohammed (pbus). Imam Hussain was martyred in the Battle of Kerbala and it was Zaineb who stood up to Yazid ibn Muawya after the Imam's brutal murder and martyrdom. Zaineb is a sheer symbol of defiance and resiliance and many Iraqi women are named after her. Is it the plight of Iraqi women to hold the torch after their men have been killed and carry the burdens of life widowed; throughout history and in these testing times?

Um Hussain 22x17cm 2004

... who continues carrying burden upon burden while coping with extraordinary conditions created by oppression, sanctions, wars, death, violence, destruction, grief,
sorrow
and more pain,
day in,
day out. Why?"