My Father’s Garden

My father’s garden is a place of family history. This series portrays the fruitfulness and beauty of my parents’ house, located in a small village on top of pine hills overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Growing up, the house was a refuge for my family - a shelter we escaped to during the civil war in Lebanon. The times we spent in this house represented moments of isolation and reflection. Forced to leave the city and our social lives behind, we found great pleasure in the simplicity of connecting with nature and with one’s roots. I began to draw and paint here, surrounded by the luscious fruit trees, silvery olive groves, and aromas of the gardenia and jasmine flowers.