DIASPORA

SARA SHAMMA
 DIASPORA
SARA SHAMMA

ART SAWA
27 OCTOBER – 30 NOVEMBER 2014
DIASPORA
Much more so than most artists based in the Middle East, Sara Shamma possessed A major difference, however, is that both the Delacroix and the Vereshchagin are
an international reputation long before the pictures presented in this exhibition were direct references to public events. Pyramid of Skulls evokes the campaigns of the
made. She has been the recipient of major prizes in countries as far apart from one Scourge of God, Tamerlane.
another as Britain and Australia, and has participated regularly in major internation- ​
al exhibitions in Britain, Germany and the U.A.E. In 2010 she was invited to become In contrast to this, the imagery of these recent paintings by Sara Shamma is carefully
a United Nations World Food Programme ‘Celebrity Partner’. non-specific. They are not ‘war pictures’ in any descriptive way. What they do is to
evoke a climate of metaphysical horror. They put together images that have much
However, because of the current situation in her native Syria, both tragic and dra- greater power when placed in (apparently irrational) conjunction with one another
matic as all the world now knows, the images shown here possess a special reso- than they could possess if viewed in isolation.
nance, and are perhaps the most powerful that she has created in the course of an
already distinguished career. Half of them, as she tells us in a note included in this In part, our ability to read these images is due to our experience of Surrealism. There
catalogue, were created in Syria itself. The others were made in Lebanon, where she is, nevertheless, a distinction to be made. Surrealist paintings usually – in fact almost
and her two small children have taken refuge from the war. invariably – refer to the interior self of the artist. The major exceptions to this are
certain paintings by Dali, for example his Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Pre-
If one looks to see what the paintings have in common with one another, and what monition of Civil War) (1936), now in the Arensberg Collection in the Philadelphia
seems to divide the later ones, made in Lebanon, from those painted while she was Museum of Art. Dali’s own description of the picture “as a vast human body break-
still living in Syria, the similarities and the differences are instructive. ing out into monstrous excrescences of arms and legs tearing at one another in a
delirium of autostrangulation” certainly resonates with the vibe one gets from some
The style of all the canvases is extremely bold and painterly, and underlying the of Sara Shamma’s recent paintings, though her compositions are much more paint-
swirls of paint there is a very solid structure of drawing, which demonstrates her erly in handling.
firm grip on three-dimensional form. There are images of very young children,
and others, combined with these, that we can read as self-portraits. In some paint- This painterliness might perhaps prompt a different comparison – with the work of
ings there is a sudden shift of texture. Parts are rendered in near monochrome, in a Francis Bacon, but this, I think, would be misguided. Under the swirling paint that is
quasi-photographic way, but are they juxtaposed with forms rendered in bold swirls such a feature of some of Shamma’s work one is always conscious of a firm structure
of paint. Some paintings play with the idea of double vision. There are also moments of ‘academic’ (in the good sense) drawing. In Bacon, who was self-taught, this kind
when the swirls of paint threaten to swallow the forms completely, and reduce them of structure doesn’t really exist.
to incoherent chaos.
There is also, however, yet another comparison to be made, which is one with the
Underlying all the images, even those made before the artist’s move to her place of world of film. In the most recent paintings in this exhibition images slide in and out
exile in Lebanon, there is a powerful, unmistakable feeling of anxiety – an emo- of focus, are present and then dissolve, in a way that invites the spectator to recreate
tion focused, one senses, on the threat to her children, rather than herself. Though the composition, internalizing it rather than simply passively looking at it. This is
no overt statement about it is made, one can read these earlier compositions in the something that is essentially cinematic. The old traditional way of making images is
series as allegories about the way in which the situation in Syria was then deteriorat- subtly reconciled with our experience of modern technology. This is interesting in
ing. They are, however, much less forceful in this respect than the more recent com- itself, at a time when many enthusiasts for new technological forms of art, video in
positions. particular, have tended to imply that images made with paint on canvas are some-
how archaic, and therefore in the process of being marginalized.
The later paintings in the group belong to a tradition that is, in its remoter reaches,
rooted in the Sturm und Drang painting of the late 18th century – I am thinking Most people know the much-quoted Chinese malediction: “May you live in inter-
here particularly of Fuseli’s celebrated canvas The Nightmare (1781) – and also per- esting times.” The impressive images exhibited here demonstrate that personal and
haps in the Caprichos of Goya (1797). One can also point to certain aspects of early public misfortunes, the high drama of those “interesting times”, do have the power to
19th century political art, notably an early masterpiece by Delacroix, The Massacres provoke the creation of major art.
at Chios (1824). One might also cite a work from somewhat later in the 19th century,
the Russian artist Vassily Vereshchagin’s terrifying Pyramid of Skulls (1871). “Edward Lucie – Smith, internationally renowned critic and curator”.
London September 2014
 UNTITLED
2013
Oil & Acrylic on canvas
100 x 120 cm
 UNTITLED
2013
Oil & acrylic on canvas
100 x 120 cm
 UNTITLED
2013
Oil & Acrylic on canvas
100 x 120 cm
 UNTITLED
2013
Oil & Acrylic on canvas
100 x 120 cm
UNTITLED, 2012, Oil & Acrylic on canvas, 2 (155 x 175) cm
UNTITLED, 2012, Oil &Acrylic on canvas, 2 (155 x 175) cm
SELF PORTRAIT, 2013, Oil & Acrylic on canvas, 2 (125 x 200) cm
 UNTITLED
2013
Oil & Acrylic on canvas
100 x 120 cm
 UNTITLED
2013
Oil & Acrylic on canvas
200 x 200 cm
 SMOKE OBSERVER
2012
Oil & Acrylic on canvas
155 x 175 cm
 UNTITLED
2012
Oil & Acrylic on canvas
150 x 150 cm
BOY WITH MONKEY
2013
Oil & acrylic on canvas
175 x 175 cm
SARA SHAMMA​
Sara Shamma was born in Damascus, Syria (1975), to a family of intellectuals. They
encouraged her love of painting which she developed as a small child, and by the age
of 14, Shamma decided she would train as a painter. Shamma graduated from the
Painting Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Damascus in 1998.
Following her graduation, Shamma participated in a number of solo and group
exhibitions including (solo): “Q” Royal College of Art, London, UK, 2013, Birth,
Art House, Damascus, Syria, 2011, Love, Curated by Fatina Al-Sayed, 360 MALL,
Kuwait, 2009, and (group): The Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition,
The Mall Galleries, London, 2013, Nord Art 2012, Annual International Exhibition,
organized by KiC – Kunst in der Carlshütte, Büdelsdorf, Germany, Art Prize 2010,
Kendall College, UAE Through Arabian Eyes, the International Financial Centre,
Dubai, UAE, 2008, Syrian Artists, Art House Damascus at Souq Wakef Art Center,
Doha, Qatar, 2008, The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize, ETSA Utilities Gal-
lery, South Australian Museum, Adelaide, South Australia and the National Archives
of Australia in Canberra, Australia, 2008, Panorama of Syrian Arts, Catzen Arts
Centre at The American University Washington, D.C. USA, 2007, International
Painting Prize of the Castellon County Council, ESPAI (the Contemporary Art
Centre), Castellon and the Municipal Arts Centre of Alcorcon, Madrid, Spain 2005,
Women and Arts, International Vision, Expo Sharjah, Sharjah, UAE, 2005, BP Por-
trait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK, 2004.
Shamma was invited to join the teaching staff of the Adham Ismail Fine Arts In-
stitute in Damascus, where she taught for three years from 1998. Besides her own
practice and her involvement in the education of young artists, Shamma has been
consistently active in the Syrian art scene. She was a member of the jury for The An-
nual Exhibition for Syrian Artists held by the Ministry Of Culture, Damascus, Syria
in 2006.
Shamma has been the recipient of various regional and international art awards
including First Prize (The Golden Medal) in the 2001 Latakia Biennial, Syria, Fourth
Prize in the 2004 BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK and
First Prize in Painting, The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize, The South Aus-
tralian Museum, Adelaide, Australia in 2008, Fourth prize in painting, and Special
Mention, Florence Biennial, Florence, Italy 2013.
Shamma’s works can be found across the world. Selected public collections include:
The National Museum of Damascus, The British Council Collection Damascus, The
Spanish Cultural Center Collection, Damascus. Shamma’s paintings can be found
amongst private collections in: Austria, Canada, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Germany,
Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Qatar, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, Tur-
key, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States of Amer-
ica.
In 2010, Shamma was invited to become the United Nations World Food Pro-
gramme ‘Celebrity Partner’. In 2010 she created a painting for them entitled: Fight-
ing Hunger (2010). Impressed and touched by their work she continues to support
them as her chosen charity.
DIASPORA
As with many other populations in history, it seems that it is the turn of the Syrians
to flee their homeland and scatter around the world. This is a real diaspora because
it forms a mass dispersion of an involuntary nature; of a group of people maintaining
a myth about their peaceful homeland. They regard the cities they left as their true
home, to which they will eventually return; they are committed to the restoration or
rebuilding of that homeland and they still do not really believe what has happened.
I moved out of Damascus in the end of 2012 when the situation deteriorated sig-
nificantly. I went with my two young children to Lebanon, to the hometown of my
mother. With me I shipped all my paintings, canvases, colors and brushes. My
husband remained in Damascus because of his business, risking the roads to come
to see us every weekend. My country is destroyed and Lebanon is not very stable.
The future is very blurry and worrying. I think that this is the status of most of the
Syrians living this diaspora, one of the significant side-effects of what is happening
in Syria.
The body of work for this exhibition consists of 12 paintings; half of them created in
Damascus in the last few months before I left, the other half in Lebanon just after I
arrived.
The paintings are about people, people in “diaspora”. I wouldn’t call them Syrians,
they could be any men, women and children who were obliged to leave their home-
land to try and establish a life somewhere else, With them they carry the fragments
of their lives, the memories of peace whilst they chase one common dream, the
dream of a new peace.
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