The Artists
Rufaida Sehwail
Rufaida was born and raised in Gaza city to refugee parents originally from Majdal. She holds a BA in Fine Arts from Al-Aqsa University, Gaza, and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Psychological Counseling.
An active artist and art teacher for nearly twenty years, she has sustained her practices throughout the genocide despite unimaginable loss. She lost her home, studio, original paintings, private library, and loved ones. She survived five encounters with possible death and was forced to flee nine times within the Gaza Strip. Yet she continues to create, using whatever materials are available. She also uses art to support traumatized children by providing safe spaces where they can express their fear, grief, and hope through color rather than silence.
After her home at An-Nasr neighborhood was destroyed, Rufaida found refuge in her parents’ home in the southern Al-Rimal district of Gaza City, where she continues to live with them.
War Diaries, watercolor and ink on paper, approx. 10.5” x 14”, 2024 - 2025
Rufaida created these artworks from her own experience of the genocide, witnessing how war reshapes both place and human life. Rather than documenting destruction, they reflect the enduring effects of war on the human being. In this sense, drawing becomes an act of survivance and a means of preserving communal memory. Instead of depicting what war destroys, Rufaida’s work affirms the human capacity to leave traces that violence cannot erase. Walls may collapse and homes disappear, yet memory continues to reconstruct what has been lost, while art gives form to what language cannot express.
As Rufaida explains: “War Diaries is not an archive of destruction, but an archive of human existence. It poses an open question: What remains of human beings when they are deprived of everything? These works explore possible answers: in every painting, memory resists forgetting and repeated displacement, while art resists erasure.”
@rufaida.sehwail