Zahra Marwan: Is There a Horse on Your Roof?

“I find myself often in disbelief — at how beautiful life can be, the opportunities that come my way, at the darkness that ails my family and loved ones, how I wish politics wouldn’t be so personal,” says Kuwaiti-born, Albuquerque-based artist, author and illustrator Zahra Marwan.

Her upcoming show negotiates this realm of disbelief. Its title—Is There a Horse on Your Roof?—comes from Maurice Sendak’s debut children’s picture book, Kenny’s Window, which tells the story of a young boy’s quest to find the magical garden he dreams about, helped along the way by his toys in a blend of realism and imagination. To Marwan, the book is a meditation on loneliness and love in a dream-like world.

Marwan’s work is at once deeply personal, populated by the people, places and memories of her own life, and universal, inviting viewers to reflect on moments of beauty and connection in their own lives. It carries a profound sense of reverence for the fleeting instances of love and care that reconnect us with our humanity, even in the darkest times.

“What sustains me, and continued to sustain me during the war (was it a war?) are loving relations,” Marwan says. “The quiet moments with people. People whose hearts are in the right place. And the ocean of patience I maintain with social decorum living in a place actively inflicting harm on my home, while unable to live in the place my family always belonged. Navigating grim politics between one nation to another, I acclimate to beauty among the grief.”