Artist Statement

I grew up in a small village in Syria called Al Bayadiyah, where life was self-contained with animals, crops, and rhythms that rarely changed. With no internet until seventh grade and the war closing off travel across the country, the outside world felt distant and unreachable. Yet even in that small corner of Syria, I found glimpses of something larger. English pop songs on Lebanese television carried voices from far away, showing me that life could be different. Music became my first window, and art became my response.

At nineteen, I became the first from my village to speak English fluently and the first to leave for the United States. The dream I had carried since childhood was finally real, but its cost was steep. My visa meant leaving behind my family, friends, and everything familiar, with no return for years. Standing at the airport, boarding a plane for the first time, I knew I was crossing more than borders—I was crossing into a reality I could never return from.

It is from this tension—between hope and loss, presence and absence—that my art emerges. What began as a way of explaining Syria to others became a way of painting grief: the grief of distance, of being cut off from everything familiar, of living in a reality that felt unreal. My paintings reflect the haunting sensation of derealization, when memory and physical surroundings no longer align. Through painting and animation, I hope to create a space where others can recognize their own experiences of absence, migration, and memory. My work is both a record of my journey and an invitation to connect across distance. Art is where I make sense of my dislocation, and where I continue to search for what it means to call a place home again.