Born in the governorate of Sweida in 1990, Yara al-Najm is a young Syrian artist, who majored in visual communication at the faculty of Fine Arts. Al-Najm was passionate about art from a very young age. She disliked the ordinary, and found her true self in the “rebellion of colors”. After the outbreak of the uprising, “the little rebel inside”, as she refers to it, was her impulse to be more than just another bystander.

After her graduation project about childhood in Syria was rejected, the artist was even more convinced of the necessity for change. “They dismissed my project for allegedly crossing political red lines”, al-Najm says to SyriaUntold, “nevertheless, I kept making art in support of the revolution. My first artwork was about Muhammad al-Hariri, a Syrian reporter who was subjected to severe torture in regime prisons.”

Al-Najm had to flee Syria, but she seems to maintain the same revolutionary spirit. She paints and designs photos away from home, to tell its story, and safeguard the revoution’s true face with her colors.

Optimism never abandoned al-Najm. Her expatriation, although painful, has taught her to look for a spark of hope, even in the darkest places, she says. When everyone was devastated by the news of opposition fighters leaving Homs, she designed a photo that speaks of defiant hope. In another work, al-Najm turned a pale and destroyed wall, into a piece of art, by adding colors and drawings.

The creative artworks of al-Najm were exhibited in Jordan and the “Syrian Voices” gallery in Switzerland.