Honoring Yezidi People and Culture

Sunrise Over the Servants of the Creator

Mia Hampton Sadler

First Place

Digital ink, watercolor, charcoal, and acrylic on canvas

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I am passionate about using art to inspire empathy and engage people in some of the most pressing issues of our time, including human rights, refugee care, and environmental conservation. In this piece, it was important to me to convey both the truth of the past, but also hope for the future, as seen specifically through the women who are impacted by genocide. The Yazidi woman in this piece has her eyes closed - burdened by the weight of the pain and suffering she has both endured and witnessed - but her face is turned toward the sky, under the light of a new day, with a sense of peace and hope for the future. She is surrounded by beautiful temples and foliage of the Garden of Eden to remind us of the rich history of the Yazidi people, and to symbolize how she stands on the shoulders of giants, the people who have come before her. The title is in honor of the meaning of the word Yazidi. I hope this artwork inspires us to remember that we are more than the pain we experience. We are agents for change. We are hope and the future.

Tears of Gold: Portraits of Yazidi Woman

Hannah Rose Thomas

Second Place

Tempera and 24ct gold leaf on panel

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These portrait paintings are of Yazidi women who escaped ISIS captivity. Many of the women had personally suffered sexual violence – others represent their wider community and the countless un-told stories of horror. All have been targeted on account of their faith and/or ethnicity and suffered additional vulnerability due to their gender. In Western media we heard barbaric accounts of the rape, torture and enslavement of Yazidi women, who are presented through a lens of violence and victimhood. However, this was not the story the women wanted to tell through their paintings. The paintings convey their dignity, resilience and unspeakable grief. Hannah used sacred imagery and early Renaissance tempera and Byzantine icon painting techniques, learned during her MA at the Prince's Foundation School of Traditional Arts. Hannah’s portraits are a visual testimony not only of war and injustice but also of humanity, dignity, and resilience. Through her paintings Hannah seeks to give voice to the voiceless, lionise the isolated and prescribe dignity to the persecuted and forcibly displaced.

Portrait of Yezidi Woman

Aveen Ismail

Third Place

Digital oil and acrylic on canvas

My name is Aveen Ismail, I am a self-taught Yezidi artist from Iraq. When the Gulf War broke out in 1990, my and her family were forced to flee the country, living in a refugee camp at age 7. In 1993, my family and I were sponsored by the Canadian government, and we settled in British Columbia; my family and I were the first Yezidi family in North America. Living in peace without the worries of war, I had time to explore my passion. I began drawing, using simple pencil on paper and then diversified my work, expanding into cartoon characters, still-life images, and fashionable dresses. I express my gift using oil and acrylic on Photoshop software. I am constantly finding new mediums to experiment my talents and skills through art. When the genocide took place on August 3rd, 2014, against my people in Sinjar, I knew I had to use my arts to speak the truth about who are the Yezidis to the world through social media. In 2018, I self-published my first paper book by using my artworks in English called “Children of the Sun, The Yezidi People.” I used my arts to illustrate a simple and a beautiful way to describe the Yezidi’s beliefs with scared symbols, fashions, traditions, and spirituality on social media.