Farah Qarmout
Loss, 2024
Acrylic on canvas; 100 x 100 cm | Original: Oil on canvas; 100 x 100 cm
Reproduced in tandem with a Berlin-based painter on the occasion of the Gaza Biennale, Berlin Pavilion

3000 euro
(amount transferred to the artist)

The landscape in Farah Qarmout’s painting Loss defies conventional rules of perspective: the buildings appear to spin in constant motion and something is always upside down. The painting is an expression of Palestinian sumud (steadfastness) that shows a world caught in a cycle of destruction and recovery. Loss references Suprematist painter Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square (1915), a square-shaped, all-black painting that the Russian artist insisted was the first artwork to depict nothing. In contrast, Farah Qarmout fills the square field of Loss with Palestinian symbolism that unites suffering and beauty in a single image with powerful iconography.

Farah Qarmout (b. 1986, Syria; displaced in Cairo) began her artistic practice after studying business administration, experimenting with various materials like pencil, charcoal, pastels, and watercolor before expanding into oil paint. She presented her first solo exhibition Relative Calm in 2023 and has since participated in numerous group shows, including the exhibitions Life Option, Stories from the Place, and Free Space at Dar al-Kalima University, all in 2023; Fragments of the City at the French Cultural Institute, Gaza, in 2023; This Is Not an Exhibition at the Palestinian Museum in 2024; and the exhibitions Gaza: A Moment of Becoming and Turning Point, at Al-Qattan Cultural Centre, Ramallah, both in 2024. After October 2023, Farah Qarmout faced multiple displacements within Gaza before relocating
with her family to Cairo in April 2024. Her studio and many of her works were destroyed in the bombing of the Shifa area of Gaza City. The fate of paintings stored in her family’s home remains unknown. Despite the upheaval and uncertainty, she continues to develop her
artistic voice across painting, sculpture, photography, and conceptual art.