Four refugee artists from Afghanistan

Danielle Fattori

Exhibition: Afghanistan Unveiled

The article and artists that I have chosen to review were from the Artlink Mag (vol 23#1 Page 51). WhenI was browsing through the mag these particular images caught my eye. I love images that reflect a scence with plenty of detail and look really realistic. I also loved these paintings because of the incredible stories that they were influenced by.

In the article written by Angelika Tyronne & Helena Stewart they reviewed the exhibition 'Afghanistan Unveiled' in which four artists Shafiq Monis, Sayed Monsoor, Ali Reza Ramzi and Ghulam Sakhi Hazara had works in. The exhibition was part of Refugee Week which in my opinion would have helped make the public more aware of current issues sourrounding the refugee crisis. All four of the artist have been in detention centres (one is still in there) and there work often reflects the struggles in fleeing to Australia & refugee camps. There is one image that kinda haunts me called "comfort from out side". It's of a boy sitting down behind a fence patting two dogs on the other side of the fence (very depressing).

Another painting which I thought was interesting and depicted the the lifestyle of one of the artist whilst in Afghanistan was by Ali Reza Ramzi. The painting was reproduced in Australia and shows a man being threatened by the Taliban because he's put a painting on his pharmacy wall which reflects human drama. The man (Ramzi) was warned that he would be killed and was thrown into jail. However Ramzi escaped and new the only way for him to survive was to flee Afghanistan and migrate to Australia. I think sometimes we really don't know how lucky we are.