We love a piece of art that stops us and makes us pause to consider it. Kurdish-British artist Tishk Barzanji has that ability in spades, with an impressively large collection of dark, surreal, and moody paintings. Taking on a vibe of strange-noir, Barzanji’s work is often accompanied by poems or short verses, like the one below.
Compelling and ambitious work, and yet another reason why art is powerful.
The old man is playing symphonic tunes on his saxophone ,
The sky was so red I couldn’t look at it because it made me sad, swelling tears in my eyes and they dripped quietly on the floor as I got on with my day. I tried to keep my focus, ticked off the to-do list, did my chores. I made breakfast, wrote emails, paid bills and rewrote stories,
but the panic kept growing, exploding in my chest. Tears falling on the bed
tick tick tick
me not making a sound
and some days I just don’t know what to do. Where to go or who to see and I try to be gentle, soft and kind .
It is as if my life were magically run by two electric currents: joyous positive and despairing negative, whichever is running at the moment dominates my life, floods it.– A Song For You
