The Witness by Naemat Wardak
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 120 x 120 cm
Year: 2026
Price: $17870.00 USD
Status: available
The Witness comes from a fear I have carried quietly: that we are becoming less able to care for one another. I painted the central eye as a symbol of human conscience, the part of us that sees suffering even when we choose not to respond. The fractured landscape is filled with figures climbing, falling, reaching, and disappearing. Stairways and doors suggest escape, struggle, and uncertain paths. The raised hands may look celebratory at first, but I see desperation in them a need to be noticed. I use oil and geometric forms to break the scene into fragments, reflecting a world where people can stand close to one another while still feeling profoundly alone. The spheres become burdens, memories, and pieces of lives carried through an unstable world. For me, the painting is not only about witnessing suffering. It asks what happens to our humanity when witnessing becomes ordinary.
Why collect this work?
A monumental eye occupies one compartment while miniature bodies scatter through a brightly partitioned structure. This disparity makes seeing a form of power, yet leaves open whether observation produces care or merely distance.
- Wardak states that he uses fragmented geometry to reconstruct memories he cannot fully express in words. In this painting, fragmentation also serves his declared concern that repeated exposure to suffering can weaken human responsiveness.
- In the supplied photograph, stairs, ramps and doorways promise movement but rarely connect across the composition’s borders. Figures push, balance, signal and wait in separate zones, so collective activity repeatedly breaks into solitary episodes.
- The documented oil-on-canvas medium accommodates both sharply bounded colour planes and graduated shading. Rounded spheres and the eye consequently register as dense volumes against flatter, diagram-like surroundings.
- At a documented 120 by 120 centimetres, the painting compresses many incidents into a single square field. It provides a focused case for considering how abundant visual information can coexist with uncertain agency and responsibility.
About the Artist
Naemat Wardak
Naemat Wardak is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: painting. Based in Kabul, AF.
Nationality: Afghan
I paint because there are things I remember that I cannot fully put into words.
