With Shocking Style, This Kuwaiti-Syrian Artist Screams with the Voice of the People

Dotted along the halls of London’s Ayyam Gallery, a series of paintings by Kuwaiti-Syrian artist Shurooq Amin raise eyebrows and spark uncomfortable questions in the viewer’s mind.

Entitled ‘We’ll Build This City on Art and Love’, the exhibition is on display in England from November 13 to January 10 2015. Child marriage, gender stereotypes, censorship, political stagnation, and other rocky topics are all within boundaries for Amin, who finds in art a channel to document history – and in the process, to change its course.

“Decades from today, the people of the future will look back at the art of this time and this region and be able to see a tapestry of images that scream with the voice of the people. This is a humbling thought. And a responsibility that I hope to live up to,” she said in an interview with Your Middle East.

A winner of the Arab Woman Award for Artist of the Year in 2013, Amin says she is received with both enthusiasm and suspicion in her home country of Kuwait. “I’ve gone through a roller-coaster ride of love and hate within my country,” she says.

For more information: visit Shurooq Amin’s website.