August 2007
What is the one thing or thought that troubles you and keeps you awake and thinking at night?
Sarah al-Shamma is the youngest of Syrian artists, and one of the finest and most internationally acclaimed. She speaks to FW about the hardships and joy of being Syria’s Number One in the young generation of Syrian artists. Upon entering the house of world-renowned young Syrian artist, Sarah Shamma, my expectations were wildly bouncing all over the place. There I was, the fresh graduate, at the doorstep of one of the most successful Syrian women, who has surpassed all obstacles that could have held back an artist in the Arab world, nonetheless a female artist, and managed to invest her talent to the fullest. Would she be as daringly somber as her notorious self-portraits? Would she possess the mysticism and spirituality of her celebrated vibrant Soui series? Or would she leak of the surreal coolness unearthed in the cold tones of her early works of the nineties? I soon discovered that Sarah Shamma, was all the above with a touch of humble confidence that quietly radiated as soon as one set eyes on her. And Sarah Shamma had plenty to say about the current condition of art in Syria, the implementation of academia in the Faculty of Fine Arts, with a few words of wisdom to aspiring artists in this region of the world.
The exhibition started on June 5, 2007 at the Katzen Art Center of the American University Museum in Washington DC, one of the most prestigious venues in the United States. American visitors streamed in, amazed at the beauty of paintings on display. But these were not French, German, or American artists. These were artists from Syria. These were artists from a so-called ‘rogue’ state, as US officials have been saying since relations deteriorated between Damascus and Washington back in 2003. An ordinary American watching his country’s mainstream media, or listening to the anti-Syrian rhetoric coming out of the State Department would certainly have expected something different. He would have expected images that reflect the psyche of a ‘terrorist’ mind. Instead, he found the brilliance of artists like Wahbi al-Harriri (1914-1944), the last of the Syrian classicists, the underdogs and poor characters of Louai Kayyali (1934-1978), along with the red earth and villages of Fateh al-Moudarress, the father of contemporary Syrian art, whose themes of identity, mythology, fear, and beauty are internationally recognized and can be related to by ordinary Americans. Majestically displayed were the works of contemporary artists like Ahmad Moualla, whose imagination is a wild mixture of the poetic and the insane; images of ambivalent hallucinations and spiritualities, ranging from noble men to the skeleton of a monster devouring him-self. There were also the startlingly human portraits of the young artist Sarah al-Shamma, one of the most daring and innovative artists across the generational divide in Syria. In all there were 22 artists represented in Washington at an exhibition that displayed 45 works of art from Syria. Raif al-Sayyed, the Chair of the Organizational Committee, spoke to FW about the Herculean task of planning, marketing, and executing such an event in Washington. “If it were not for the Syrian Embassy and the Syrian community in DC, this exhibition would not have happened” she said. Sayed, who holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Surrey in the UK, is an accomplished woman with talent, character, and determination. When US President George W. Bush first met her he could not hide his surprise that an Arab woman—and a Syrian—would have a doctoral degree in informatics. Before studying in the UK then residing in Washington, she used to teach at the Faculty of Computer Science at Damascus University, where she met her future husband the Ambassador, who had been Dean of the Faculty. “The idea of holding such an event in DC has accompanied me for two years” she said “but it took eight months to execute.” She recalled that the Katzen Center had previously turned down two similar exhibition requests, made by Embassies from two different Arab countries in Washington, but it wasn’t difficult for the Syrians to convince them of the quality of Syrian art. Jack Rasmussen, the director of the Katzen Center, explains: “When I was approached by the Embassy of the Syrian Arab Republic…
In ancient times, people used to see women as taboos; a flesh without spirit, or when found, a spirit that is devilish. Then came world religions to prove the contrary. The monotheistic religions gave women rights, duties, and obligations. In Islam, women were addressed in the following verse of the Holy Quran: “You people fear your God who created you from one soul, then created its partner and many men and women out of them.” (The Sura of Women, Verse 19).
I know, this is quite understandable— being another typical hot-blooded, Syrian man. I mean, why on earth wouldn’t I?
Poetics aside, women are the very oxygen of life. A woman gives, nurtures, and preserves life. She is a giver, she is a custodian, she is the bedrock a family is built on. Simply put, without woman life does not exist. It is a woman who first opened my eyes to the beauty of words, who inspired me to read, who opened up a well of emotions within my soul. It is a woman’s image that has made me appreciate art, it is a woman’s image on a flickering screen that gave me warmth and nurtured my imagination. It is a woman who gave me her love, and who gave me the gift of children, and who continues to light up my life, everyday.
I hear such comments every time I attend a conference, a school reunion, or work function. How many times do you hear that we, as Syrian women, are fortunate to be living in a secular society with laws that do not discriminate between men and women? How many times are we told that we are fortunate to be living in an Arab society where men and women are (ostensibly) equal. But is this indeed the case? Or is it just a convenient political “fiction” masking a very different reality? So let us examine the real facts of the matter.

