Hanna Doukhan on her new series, "Resilience"

For nearly four years, what I have been painting has been cleaned of any reference to suffering and malaise. I came to the conclusion that no longer wanted to create from a place of affliction, nor sow my own seeds of torment, in what I give to the viewer’s eyes.

Twenty years of dealing with a complex disease have taught me the power of our state of mind in order to face adversity. This awareness, supported by a meditative practice, has definitively changed the nature and the place I give to art. 

The intensity of the events that have been shaking our country and the whole region for more than a year now, expose our psyche to strong tensions, new or repeated traumas. Information, whether it is conveyed by the media, the circle of our acquaintances or the deleterious ambient bath in which we are immersed, erodes our vital energy. And we may come to doubt what made sense in our lives not so long ago. 

How may I proactively influence my inner world and the mental patterns that developed over the years and drove me to believe I had no power to change the world around me.

Before each working session, I have been diving into a qigong state, that allows me to free myself from the diktat of the mind, which criticizes, inhibits and limits, to reach a place where my perceptions are enlarged, and where I can find and express authenticity and benevolence.

It is with this in mind that I invite you to look at the works, and perhaps experience “something” of this opening of the perceptions. To open up to what emerges inside oneself in response to the vibrations of the colors and shapes, but also to the state of being that accompanied the whole process of creation.

Interior with Couple, 2022, oil on linen, 68x60