A Syrian artist draws a painting amid the rubble and destruction of the Yarmouk Camp, south of Damascus, Syria, on Aug. 16, 2018. Those artists chose to draw paintings of women, children, buildings or anything that could add life to the Yarmouk Camp, which was once a home for Palestinians and Syrians south of Damascus. (Xinhua/Ammar Safarjalani)
by Hummam Sheikh Ali
DAMASCUS, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) -- With the lively strokes of their brushes, young Syrian artists bring colors back, through meaningful paintings, to a colorless place stripped from life by the long-running war in Syria.
Those artists chose to draw paintings of women, children, buildings or anything that could add life to the Yarmouk Camp, which was once a home for Palestinians and Syrians south of Damascus.
They brought their boards and colors and set them up amid the ruins and destruction of the Yarmouk Camp, trying to rebuild that area through their art.
While painting, they played a nostalgic music to further inspire them to revive the glorious past in the area that was one of the busiest in Damascus.
The Yarmouk area had been one of the latest strongholds of the Islamic State (IS) south of Damascus before their defeat in that area earlier this year by the Syrian army.
The area is now largely in ruins, gray and black are the only colors in that place before this handful of Syrian artists, who are mainly students in the Fine Art faculty, launched a project called "Grass," which was supported by a local Nour Foundation for Development.
The name "Grass" is to reflect on life, as the green grass always grow anywhere, amid the cracks of the aging stones, resembling life that grows from the dead.
"Art is something that adds color to life, and the area here is so completely black without a life so we are trying to bring life back to it through our colors," Ayat al-Zoubi, one of the artists, told Xinhua while drawing a building instead of the destroyed building before her.
Muhammad Hasan al-Khayat is another artist that decided to let his art serve a purpose in a country that suffered huge devastation.
His painting resembled a whirlpool with a white spot in the middle surrounded by war. He said the white spot is where everything will return as peaceful as they were.
"We wanted to take part in bringing life to this place even with a simple stroke of a brush, to bring back the colors that have disappeared through the years of war and eclipsed by all the blackness. We wanted to bring the colors that this place once had," he said.
Speaking more about this project, Abdul-Naser Naji, an organizer who was a resident of Yarmouk Camp, said life shall return to that area despite what the terror-labeled groups did.
"We want to highlight life after death was the prominent feature here. Grass grows from underneath the rocks and the (Yarmouk) Camp needs this after all this time," he said.
This area "needs color as colors are life. You can see the green, red and white colors. All of these are a symbol of life," he said.
The project will see these artists showcasing their works displayed in an open-air gallery at the gate of the Yarmouk Camp later.
