No Country For Young Men 6

In 2016, After watching the news that 56 million people, 86 % were young men under 30, have migrated from their homeland and are looking for a place to start a new life, I was really shocked. At that time I was volunteering in one of the refugee centers in my neighborhood as a translator. I thought I was aware of what was happening but that figure wasn't something I can deal with. For the next couple of weeks, I had these images flowing to my head while I’m in bed almost every night. The images were very fragmented. In the beginning, I was seeing feet, many feet, many bare feet. They were moving in some kind of rhythm, like a marching orchestra. And one day I decided to paint at the bottom of three canvases to paint those feet without knowing where it was going. After that, I start to see the hands and the shoulders and the heads. The three paintings start to progress accordingly. These are the only three paintings that I worked from bottom to top.

I gave them the title ‘’No country for young men’’ because that is what they were denied: a country where they can call home. But the flip side of it also means young people should not be bound by physical boundaries. Any place, where their dream is, should be their country.

These paintings helped me enormously to realize my frustration and find a relief. Even after the first painting, I wasn't the central focus anymore rather injustice itself was. I thought of all the innocent people labeled as criminals by criminal politicians and lawmakers.