Few artists remember Syria’s Christians

posted on: Jun 14, 2015

While the West turns its bored gaze away from global Christian holocausts, a handful of diaspora artists attempt to catch our attention and move our hearts.

One of these is Syrian immigrant and artist Essa Neima, who shares his concerns, sorrows and fond memories through his paintings. Evidence of Syria’s ancient ties to Christianity are evident in most of his work, an important piece of this conflict that is often slighted.

Syrian artist Essa Neima in his studio in Washington D.C. (CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn)
Neima’s work was created to show viewers, as his exhibit catalog explains, “a part of Syria the media doesn’t seem to have time to show,” going beyond the obvious. His art is meant to evoke emotions Syrians feel about the tragedies to their people, the church and their forced repatriations and travails.

For Neima, the fate of Orthodox church art and cultural landmarks are “deaths” just as real as any other. Along with a multitude of Syrian and Iraqi refugees, he deeply mourns them. Seeing that world as “forever lost,” he believes the violence and bloodshed have “diminished the human condition” and destroyed art from Syria reaching back countless generations.

Remembering places of worship and the art and furnishings they once held, Neima places visual cues through a series of paintings in his ongoing exhibit “Touch Me Not: Wounds of Palmyra.”

From an interview with the Catholic Herald, Neima revealed how his show began with a dream filled with “writing” and a “wise, sad eye” watching him accusingly, as if he should be doing something. After this, he felt compelled to share with the rest of the world the annihilation war was bringing to his culture and heritage.

Jesus commanded “Touch me not” to Mary Magdalene in honor of his transitionally human and perhaps tenuous state, before his permanent resurrection (John 20:17).

“I want to represent all the disrespected people and the art damaged by the violence and say ‘Touch me not,’” Neima explains. The verse goes on to say, “for I have not yet returned to my Father.” Most Syrian refugees across the world claim they would like to return home to rebuild their nation as well. For now, Neima lives in Washington D.C and works as an adjunct professor of digital art at the University of the District of Columbia.

Source: www.wnd.com