It’s been just over three years since a massive explosion ripped through the port of Beirut, with Lebanon still reeling from the tragedy to this day. Influenced by her personal experiences in the city, Lebanese painter Tagreed Darghouth’s new solo exhibition delves deeper into ideas of warfare, political violence and the transformation of cities by military and security. “Gardens and Jungles is inspired by the Stephen Graham book Cities Under Siege, The New Military Urbanism,” Tagreed tells MOJEH. “It was born out of an intention to highlight our new reality, and the series of paintings take military camouflage patterns as their background.”
Inspired by her time spent in Beirut between 1997 and 2021 — “the city back then was beyond charming, and it shaped my artistic and political orientation, and consequently my art,” she tells us— visitors can immerse themselves in a collection of acrylic paintings on canvas that depict landscapes, flowers, trees and birds, all painted atop a camouflaged print on fabric or paper, juxtaposing both the ruins of conflict and the resilience of the natural world. “I want my visitors to feel the ‘hammer’ within my artworks and hear the defying voice behind my proposed aesthetic language.” This is one you’ll have to see for yourselves.
