Shoreless Sea No.16 By Tayseer Barakat

In his latest series of abstract seascapes, Shoreless Sea, Tayseer Barakat’s works manifest as an account of refugees’ desperate journeys to cross the Mediterranean to Europe in search of a normal life.  For Barakat, the Mediterranean was part of his life; he himself is a refugee who lived near the shores of Gaza as a child and by the shores of Alexandria as an undergraduate student.

The drawing technique Barakat uses creates a sincere feeling of moving waves, turbulent water, and an alive sea. Looking closely, one could imagine Poseidon, the Greek god of the Sea, steering sea storms and creating enormous waves across the surface. One can even feel him breathing from under the waters through the lungs of hundreds of refugees who lost their lives drowning in the depths.