Euphrates Storyteller

Syrian refugee Aboud Salman rekindles his artistic career.

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Syrian refugee Aboud Salman stands in his sunlit home on a tree-lined street, beaming with pride. In his hands is a fragment of a cardboard box he used for one of his first paintings in Canada. In 2017, after Salman, together with his wife, Soaad, and their four sons, arrived in Edmonton, he could not afford canvas.

Fierce determination and an ever-ready smile helped Salman create art during the worst of times. After the Syrian civil war started in 2011, he took shelter in a Lebanese refugee camp. Without work or money, he scavenged scraps of fabric from the garbage, fastened them together and painted with shoe polish. The resulting tapestry, Shoe Polish, is featured in his first major solo show in Canada, Euphrates storyteller, on view until May 21 at the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie, a four-hour drive northwest of Edmonton. 

It was a long and arduous road to rebuild his studio practice. In Syria, Salman was an art teacher, a prize-winning art critic and author, and a prolific artist who had exhibited throughout the Middle East and in Europe. But when ISIS militants seized his town, he lost everything. 

His eyes glaze with tears as he recalls how 35 years of art and manuscripts disappeared in moments. “They claimed I was doing magic and burned my books,” he says in Arabic, which Soaad and one of their sons translate. “Everything inside my house that was art-connected was burned.” Had he not fled the conflict two years earlier, he says he would have been killed. 

Only 100 or so of his ceramic works remain, but he doesn’t know how to find them. His mother buried them as ISIS approached. But unable to get the medicine she needed, she died before she could tell him where to look.

Only hints of such trauma are evident in Salman’s show: luminous colours and narratives inspired by folk tales sublimate ordeals into mythology. His latest series of 12 paintings, Journey from Syria to Canada, begins with a wind-swept panorama of Al-Rahba, a medieval fortress on the banks of the Euphrates River, near his home in the town of Al Mayadin.  

Every detail in this painting tells a story: the black contour of the fortress is interlaced with the names of Salman’s family, emphasizing his ancestral connections to this place. Flocks of sheep honour his parents, who were shepherds, and a camel caravan points to the area’s historical connection to the ancient Silk Road trade route to the Far East.

But it’s his mother, symbolized by a bird with wings as wide as the sky, who dominates the scene. Her folktales, hand-woven tapestries and unfailing faith in his artistic talent gave his dreams flight and probably helps explain how he found the courage to revive his career in a new land.

Salman also credits local arts groups, notably CARFAC Alberta, for their help. Chris Carson, the organization’s executive director, provided information about grants and advice on potential galleries – including the venue for Salman’s current show. 

“Chris never left me since we met,” says Salman, his voice ringing with emotion. “He gave me the feeling that I am welcome.” 

That’s the kind of hospitality Carson wants all arts organizations to offer newcomers. Despite cultural and language barriers, he knew immediately that Salman was a kindred spirit. 

“Aboud’s whole personality is defined by his art,” says Carson. “I could recognize somebody who was 100-per-cent an artist.” ■

Aboud Salman: Euphrates storyteller at the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie in Alberta from Feb. 16 to May 21, 2023.

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