SAMIRA BADRAN | The Castle in the Wind

Collection of the artist, Palestine
Sale: Beirut, Dar El-Nimer for Arts & Culture Charity Auction, Keyword: Palestine, 2018 (donated by the artist)
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner 

Condition: This work is in very good condition. No sign of restoration under UV light. Colours: The colours in the catalogue illustration are accurate.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Samira Badran is a Palestinian artist who was born in Tripoli, Libya to the late Palestinian craftsman Jamal Badran (1909-1990). Her family fled during the 1948 War only to return to their homeland in Ramallah in the 1960s. Badran was inspired by her father, learning how to draw and paint from a young age, and was encouraged to pursue her studies in the arts. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Cairo (1976) followed by a degree in etching and painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence (1982). Badran’s work reflects on the distressing realities and traumas experienced by Palestinians in the aftermath of the 1967 War which she experienced directly during her youth. Her paintings from the 1980s portray scenes filled with enigmatic imagery of reassembled pieces of machinery, fragmented objects, or dismembered bodies scattered across dark and restless spaces. In The Castle in the Wind, the remains of a skeletal frame from a seemingly blown up vaulted building fiercely erupt into a blistering sky, hollowed out with a domed house and a truncated horse eerily floating in a deep blue sea. Her paintings evoke deep feelings of loss and deterioration, fear and pain, as the colours and objects struggle to escape from the turmoils of a recurring nightmare.

Today Badran lives and works in Barcelona, focusing her work on collective memory, confinement and immobility using mixed media, including painting, drawing, photography, installation and animation. Badran has exhibited locally and internationally with recent shows in Darat al Funun, Amman; A.M. Qattan Foundation, Ramallah; The Palestinian Museum, Birzeit; Cultural and Scientific Center of Rochebelle, France; Whitebox Art Center, New York, and the 9th Sharjah Biennial, U.A.E.