Artist Statement

I return repeatedly to the same photograph of my parents sitting in the courtyard where I grew up in Syria. Figures appear, fade, and shift from painting to painting. Colors evoke vivid memories, or the artificiality of some; from a past or future I may or may not have existed in. People are RE-placed where they shouldn’t be.

This instability isn’t only internal. My existence in the United States feels, in itself, like a protest. In the wake of restrictions that define who is allowed to enter or belong, being here unsettles those boundaries. These restrictions force years of separation from my people and familiar places, with no returning back, and no possibility for them to come.

In a state of separation, memories become unanchored and question existence beyond my mind. My work does not attempt to resolve this instability, but to remain within it, and to grieve its tension. 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.