AramcoWorld published Artists Answer COVID-19, written and curated by Beliz Tecirli, in its November and December 2020 issue. The feature gathers artworks made since February 2020 by artists of Middle Eastern heritage or residence, responding to a year of travel bans, museum and gallery closures, lockdowns and social distancing. Tecirli groups them loosely around isolation, lifestyle, access, environment and healing, from early sketches addressing fear of the virus to new collaborations conceived for online platforms.
Tagreed Darghouth appears in a section on how artists reflected on their practice and routines. Tecirli writes that the Beirut based painter found the quietude of social distancing offered "an opportunity to focus" while she kept her usual long days in the studio, and the magazine reproduces an untitled acrylic on paper by her, 21 by 30 centimetres. The article then turns to 4 August 2020, when the explosion in Beirut's port shattered far more than the windows of studios and homes for Darghouth and thousands of others in the city. Tecirli closes by describing the works as emotional touchstones for the present and a contribution to collective memory.
Tagreed Darghouth is a Lebanese painter whose work reflects on structural violence, contested identities and the changing social landscapes of Lebanon and the wider region. She received the Boghossian Foundation Prize for Young Lebanese Artists in 2012, and her work is held by the Barjeel Art Foundation, Dalloul Art Foundation and Institut du Monde Arabe. She is represented by Tabari.
