Expression through Art
When I came across the artwork of @amanihaydar I knew there was something special about it.
Something though was telling me that there was a lot more of a story behind the surface.
I was initially drawn to her idyllic depiction of some native florals. There was something about her style, use of colour and form of expression that was so different and unique.
I soon saw that the beauty in her painting was strangely juxtaposed by the harsh reality depicted in the titles of the books siting alongside this lovely vase.
I was immediately taken back.
TRAUMA, RAGE, RECOVERY - they’re not words you like to read over a casual cup of coffee.
I myself usually shy away from these themes, however, I was intrigued by this artist’s story and was drawn into her other works where beauty alongside grief, war and trauma all seem like recurring themes.
Learning, that as a pregnant mother, Amani Haydar, lost her own mother to domestic violence, tugged at my own mother heart strings. Not because this is something that has been experienced in my family but because once you become a mother I think we all somehow share in each other’s grief and pain.
A lawyer at the time, Amani is now a self-proclaimed artist and finalist of the Archibald Prize, but not only that, she is a mother, writer, and women’s advocate.
She has recently released her first book, The Mother’s Wound, to not only tell her story, but her mother’s and her mother’s mother’s, with the hope of giving other’s strength to heal their own suffering and ancestral wounds.
Lucy Clark, recently interviewed Amani on her life and newly released book, for the Guardian. A gripping story in itself!
‘The trauma - the mother wound - went far beyond ‘the loss of her own mother to the death of her beloved grandmother, killed when Israeli forces bombed her village in southern Lebanon during the 2006 war. In her book, Haydar unravels this matrilineal thread as she traverses the complex territory of patriarchal culture and domestic violence, the extraordinary trauma of war and its impact of her extended family’.
The Mother Wound by Amani Haydar is out now through Pan Macmillan.
Words: Bridget Coulton
To find more about Amani Haydar, visit her on Instagram here.