"Seven Deadly Strikes" Painting

My artistic practice is based on notions of belongingness and displacement. My interest lays in how as human beings, we are constantly faced with experiences that reshape the way we deal with our sense of belongingness and comfort, or displacement and discomfort. What got me interested in this topic was observing the many life changing experiences that remove us from our natural habitats and place us in estranged environments where we are forced to adapt, having to 'rebuild our habitats' each time. My work explores these ideas in many ways, sometimes metaphorically; where I try to express general ideas of migration and adaptation, and other times literally; where I study personal experiences and situations that force me to rebuild my habitat. Previous bodies of works that explored notions of belongingness/displacement were "Arranged Marriage" (2011); a series of photographs and paintings that explored the idea of having to go through a formal union with someone who is a complete stranger to you; a tradition that is still practiced in some villages in my hometown 'Bahrain'. Another body of works entitled "Origins" (2010) was an exploration of the process of rewriting our past, and how as time progresses, our memories tend to fragment and we replace the missing parts with new interpretations on how the stories took place. By doing so we are satisfied with the new versions of our memories as they are now painted with colors that we chose, instead of what was chosen for us. Revisiting my childhood memories and reconstructing them into 'acceptable' tales was an attempt at rebuilding a new and safe environment for my conscious and subconscious mind.