Reality in Aline Geofroy paintings

I couldn’t believe that staring at a beautiful painting for a while and delving deep into its charming details will make me feel as if I were flying, so happy and excited to the point that makes me forget about time، until I saw Aline Geofroy’ vibrant paintings recently at Zawaya Art Gallery in Damascus.

Aline Geofroy is a Syrian-French artist who studied at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) and lived in Latakia.

In her paintings, she embodied Latakia’s streets with great sensitivity as she used to go and paint directly what she is seeing in the streets.

 “These paintings are of great value to me as they remind me of my city Latakia where I used to paint in the street. My drawings focused on old houses. I loved the stones of those houses”, Geofroy said.

The Gallery’s director Roula Suleiman stated: “This exhibition is a little different from the ones before as it is an artistic one as much as its is a documentary one.”

“Geofroy documented the places she has been to over the course of 60 years. Over time, the features of these places and homes changed, some were destroyed and some had their names changed, so we went to Latakia and photographed each and every place and created a QR code for them so when you scan the code you will see the current details about these places.”

Its is noteworthy that Geofroy held her first exhibition in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1957, where she displayed some of the paintings she draw of the ancient part of Rome during her stay in Italy.

Geofroy’s paintings are not just an attempt to picture stones, but she actually leaves part of her soul in these paintings; she managed to translate her feelings into these paintings so when you look at them you feel nostalgic, even though you have never been to these places.