Lamara Miranghi (born 1970) became an artist in adulthood. She started painting almost by chance. But this is exactly the situation when the puzzle pieces fit together and a sense of true purpose arises.
Lamara is a chemist. But before the invention of tubes with finished paint, all artists were a bit chemists. They themselves were making blue paint from lapis lazuli and gum, and yellow paint from chromate.
Generally, understanding the structure of substances probably facilitates the development of painting techniques: impasto or sfumato. It also gives you the knowledge that colours affect each other in different ways. After all, red next to green becomes brighter, while next to blue fades … But this is not all.
Lamara also was working in computer simulation and was creating three-dimensional works. Understanding how any particular volumetric object looks in space makes her feel confident and improves her skills.
So Lamara Miranghi started painting in 2005. Her natural talent that was superimposed on the structured mind of a chemist and the experience in the 3D modeling, has given simply amazing results for a self-taught artist.
It is hard to believe that Lamara didn’t receive an art education. However, this doesn’t prevent her from taking a worthy place among the realist artists.
Lamara has another secret. To understand it, you need to take a closer look at several works of her.
Traveler
A1.5-2years old boy sits in a woolen bag behind his mother’s back. He’s smiling and looking right at us.
His hair is tousled, who knows whether it was from the wind or from a recent dream.
Multicolored stripes and tassels echo the child’s energy of absolute contentment. In the modern world of strollers and carriers, we do not even think about how much more comfortable it would be for a baby to snuggle up to his mother’s back like this, feel completely safe and be the happiest in the world.
But his mother is a refugee, a Yazidi. His father was left to guard the village, possibly he’s been already killed. Once again, genocide drives women with children and old people into the mountains …
This is the case when the image and understanding of the context of the painting are extremely different. If you do not know who the mother of this baby is, it can be seen as a picture for an easy genre scene.
But we know that behind this back there is a ruined village, weeks and months of floating and living from hand to mouth lie ahead of them. But …. just at the moment the baby is smiling … there is really that energy which gives power to overcome the past and to be strong in future times.
Panorama Of Cry
In the mountain gorge, we see dozens of women, children and old people. They sit and stand right on the rocks with a very poor equipment: teapots and buckets. They ran away from genocide and religious intolerance.
People are so crowded in space, and their physical weakness before aggression is so obvious that it’s getting uncomfortable. This painting causes emotional stress in the viewer. Contact with the context is inevitable …
Yazidis practice Yazidism (a religion with elements of Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Judaism) and mainly live in Iraq. The first reference to them dates back to the XII century. At that time there were cases known of persecution against them.
This nation has been subjected to genocide hundreds of times. The villages were burned to the ground. Men were killed for refusing to convert to Islam. Women and children fled to the mountains.
This is exactly what Lamara painted. She is a Yazidi herself, and the history of her people is very important to her.
But we see modern clothes on these women and children! Unfortunately, in our time, attacks on representatives of this ethnic group continue.
In The Temple
Nadia Murad, a Yazidi, is a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations and Nobel Prize winner. Her family had been victim of genocide. In 2014, the village, where she had been living with her large family in Iraq was attacked.
Her father and five brothers were killed. She and her two sisters were taken into sexual slavery. By some miracle, she escaped with her sister and they moved to Germany. The fate of the other sister is unknown.
In this painting by Lamara Miranghi, a woman entered the main temple of the Yazidis, Lalesh. She leaned on a stone pillar. The Yazidis have a belief that if you hug this pillar, you will definitely find your soul mate.
The Yazidis who escaped from slavery had been brought to the same temple. Physically they were alive, but it was almost impossible to cure their souls.
This woman sincerely empathizes with them. She touches the pillar, which has already been polished from the touch of hundreds of thousands of people’s hands who have wished for more love in their lives.
She herself is a symbol of the love that lives in such women. They are so kind and brave, they are not afraid to talk about what is happening. Like Nadia Murad.
Adult’s Dreams
The Yazidi religion is based on a conscious choice of good thoughts and good deeds. After all, they believe that good and evil are transmitted to us from God. This is only our choice: to be kind or evil.
There are few Yazidis left. Hundreds of genocides for many centuries are ultimate challenge for all that. About 600,000 Yazidis live in Iraq. And there are those who were once able to flee to Russia, Armenia and other countries. Lamara is a descendant of those who once moved to Georgia.
She has also created several works with Yazidi children. After all, they are so vulnerable, so in need of a peacetime. In any case, children should have cheerful eyes …
Lamara says: “I would really like people to live peacefully. Of course, it might sound corny. But the forces spent on the war could be used for the creation, for the prosperity of our nation”.
Belonging to the Yazidi nation, the conscious cultivation of goodness in everything: in words, in deeds and in her works. As well as a reverent attitude towards those who are close to her by blood. A sincere desire to stop the centuries-old aggression, opposing it only with a kind heart and creativity.
This is what makes Lamara a special master, a Goodwill Artist.
