Vivid colours and interwoven forms represent the artists feelings at being robbed of her childhood, and oppressed as a woman, in the deeply troubled war zone of Gaza. A seated female figure with flowing waves of green hair, rests her head dejectedly on her hand, imagining an impossible freedom represented by the symbolic dove which rests on her folded arm.

Laila Kassab is a self-taught artist who was compelled to practice in secret as her family disapproved. Imprisoned by the dangerous political circumstances she was surrounded by, she used her passion for art to express her despair and frustrations.

I am interested in the relationship between Laila Kassab’s work and Jonathan Pettit’s self-portrait, both of which express difficult emotions, yet in very different ways.