Safaa Alset is a Syrian artist whose art, at first glance, looks like life-like characters and props from the animated movie, Robots. The comparison may oddly be in place because this woman uses copper and other metals to make her pieces!
Born in 1974, Alset graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Damascus University in 1997. She chose to break away from the traditional forms of art, and start her own unique career. Her choice of art forms allows her to let loose the femininity within her, as much of her art revolves around women.
Living in a war-torn country, Alset found art in the debris. Collecting scraps of metal here and there, her creativity and imagination enabled her to construct and create this realistically unrealistic idea. One of her first admirable pieces of art, is a small, wiry girl, wearing her over-sized mother’s shoes. From this, she moved on to bigger fish.
In 1994, she participated in a workshop but her first solo exhibition took place in Damascus, and it was titled “Commedia dell’Arte”,which consisted of six Black and White paintings and six masks that focus on the theme of tragedy. As a woman herself, Safaa depicts the struggles of women and their children. In her exhibition titled ‘Women‘, she intended to portray all the troubles that women go through, from divorce to loss.
In a more cheery sculpture, she created the ‘Yellow Barrel’, which is a little girl sprouting from a shiny yellow barrel that represents sunshine and hope. Also, in 2011, ‘Shoe شو؟‘ (meaning ‘what’ in Arabic) is a display of women’s obsession with fashion and shoes.
Alset’s latest creations consist of depictions of the destruction and effect of the war on Syria. This extremely creative and imaginative woman literally plays with fire and the rubble of her own country to rebuild what the war has destroyed, in forms of art. A gallery of all her art pieces can be found on her website.
Leave us a smile and let us know what you think of Safaa’s creativity!
