Zehra Dogan is guilty of using her paintbrushes as weapons against oppressors.
Geometric lines on the wall evoke simultaneously tally marks, to count off the days, and numerous sets of prison bars.
Behind one set is the face of a woman, the only figurative concession in a minimal and dry composition. The woman is Zehra Doğan (1989) Kurdish artist, journalist and Turkish citizen.
In the bottom corner is written “Free Zehra Dogan”.
Banksy, the British graffiti artist, has dedicated the work to Zehra in 2018.
The 20-metre mural is located in a public space inNew York, in Manhattan in Lower East Side ina prominent position.
The work is an intense and vigorous gesture of solidarity with fellow artist ZehraDoğan, who was arrested in Syria in 2016 on the orders of Erdogan, for having painted an image of the violence of war illustrating the destruction of a Kurdish town – Nusaybin – by the Turkish security forces. The 29-year-old’s crime was to have posted an image of the artwork on social media, an act considered “terrorist propaganda” against the state.
Zehra writes, draws, and paints fragments of life and uses all media (print, paint, words, web) to recount awkward truths, representing the ferocious reality that translates every day into landscapes of ruins and rights trampled underfoot.
Little known as an artist, today Zehra Doğan’s story is writ large on the streets of the world’s most famous city and on the lips of those who write and read about her and her struggles, both as an artist and as a Kurdish woman.
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Zehra Dogan is guilty of using her paintbrushes as weapons against oppressors.
