BARAKAT

BARAKAT

“Barakat” in Arabic means “blessings”. When I was young, I didn’t like my name and would even use other names or nicknames to avoid it. It was considered old-fashioned, and kids at school would make jokes about it. However, it was given to me after my grandfather. As I grew older, I came to love my name, realizing that creativity, art, music, poetry, and imagination are indeed real blessings that I want to devote my life to.

“I am a full-time minimalist. Someday I’m going to write a book explaining that, but right now I don’t have time for it, since I’m a full-time minimalist.”

I often find myself feeling confused and sometimes even a bit annoyed when people react to me with the question, “Ah, nice, an artist! But what exactly do you make?” The truth is, my genuine answer would be something like : I make love.

To me, being an artist is essentially about making love – love for life itself in its diverse forms, shades, and colors. It’s a perpetual state of chronic wonder and playful curiosity, a profound devotion to beauty. Being an artist isn’t just about “doing”; it’s about “being” – a lifestyle and an applied philosophy woven into everyday existence. This love finds its expression through various mediums: whether it’s in a poem, a picture, a painting, an illustration, a dance, or a serene moment beneath the shadow of a tree, a warm hug, or a smile to a stranger.

“But we must not forget that only a very few people are artists in life; that the art of life is the most distinguished and rarest of all the arts.”

Carl Jung

It’s a continuous adventure driven by my passionate interest in mysticism, anthropology, philosophy, and aesthetics, all of which are influenced by the rich Arabic-Islamic cultural heritage ingrained in my background. I enjoy re-examining this heritage with fresh perspectives, benefiting from the opportunity to reside in a multicultural environment and interact with people from diverse backgrounds. This setting enables me to explore various artistic realms freely, learning something new every day.

I was Born in Homs, Syria, in 1991, currently reside in the beautiful city of Groningen, where I ended up after a long emigration journey that started in 2015. In Groningen, I completed my art education at Hanze University (Minerva Academy), earning a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and a master’s degree in “Inter-Relational Art Practices (IRap).”