SUPPORT

Contributions to The Future is Unwritten Artists’ Response Fund directly impact artist-led projects implementing societal health and healing in the aftermath of COVID-19, with a focus on mental health and the applied use of art in.

Tears of Gold

Tears of Gold: Portraits of Yezidi Women presents Hannah Thomas’s portrait paintings of Yezidi women who escaped ISIS captivity. Through her art Hannah gives voice to the voiceless, lionizes the isolated and prescribes dignity to the persecuted and forcibly displaced. Many of the women in Hannah’s paintings personally suffered sexual violence; others represent their wider community and the countless stories of horror. All have been targeted on account of their faith and/or ethnicity and suffered additional vulnerability due to their gender, and all too often their stories remain unseen and unheard. Since 2017, Hannah has taught these women to paint their self-portraits as a way to share their stories with the rest of the world, using art as a tool for advocacy and bringing their stories into places of influence in the West. The simple act of painting their s

elf-portraits is a way to affirm their identity and value–so important considering the isolation and shame these women have experienced due to the stigma of sexual violence. These paintings convey their dignity, resilience and unspeakable grief. Many of the women chose to paint themselves with tears of gold.