Fadwa. Fatima. Hala. Hiba. Heba. Nour. Mohammed. Saleem. Refaat. & Mosab.
Image gallery
Ten first names, ten faces, ten lives – eight of them violently killed by a war that has haunted the Gaza Strip. The exhibition “GAZA” is dedicated to these ten people, not as mere names in statistics, but as individuals with biographies, families, hopes, professions, and dreams.
Seven of them share the fate of having been killed by Israeli airstrikes – as civilians, mostly in their homes, in clinics, or while fleeing. They were artists, had children or were parents, teachers, or journalists. They were not killed in battle, but in the midst of everyday life in Gaza.
Each of the ten people depicted was previously part of society under the special conditions in Gaza. What unites them in death is not just the date or the place, but the fact that they have not been forgotten – their names were written down, their faces painted, their stories shared. They gave voice to their suffering.
Matthew Collings painted them. His portraits avoid drama, depictions of pain, or political statements. Instead, they seek a quiet conversation with the viewer: through the face of a boy, the smile of a woman, the gaze of a poet – memories of people with dreams, desires, hopes, who were ruthlessly erased or now survive in the diaspora.
Thus, the series becomes a painterly, quiet, reverent form of remembrance – a dignified elegy and a call in oil on canvas. It is a collective testimony to a reality in which the human face shines through destruction and endures as witness – as what remains: the visible trace of a life that should never have ended.
Seven of them share the fate of having been killed by Israeli airstrikes – as civilians, mostly in their homes, in clinics, or while fleeing. They were artists, had children or were parents, teachers, or journalists. They were not killed in battle, but in the midst of everyday life in Gaza.
Each of the ten people depicted was previously part of society under the special conditions in Gaza. What unites them in death is not just the date or the place, but the fact that they have not been forgotten – their names were written down, their faces painted, their stories shared. They gave voice to their suffering.
Matthew Collings painted them. His portraits avoid drama, depictions of pain, or political statements. Instead, they seek a quiet conversation with the viewer: through the face of a boy, the smile of a woman, the gaze of a poet – memories of people with dreams, desires, hopes, who were ruthlessly erased or now survive in the diaspora.
Thus, the series becomes a painterly, quiet, reverent form of remembrance – a dignified elegy and a call in oil on canvas. It is a collective testimony to a reality in which the human face shines through destruction and endures as witness – as what remains: the visible trace of a life that should never have ended.
Additional information
Participating artists
Matthew Collings
