Selections published its report on Gardens and Jungles on 8 September 2023, introducing the Lebanese painter's solo exhibition at the gallery in DIFC alongside a short interview with the artist. The article presents the show as a response to the increasing militarisation of civil society, drawing on Stephen Graham's theories of warfare, political violence and the way military and security visions are reshaping cities, and building on Darghouth's earlier explorations of state surveillance and the impact of war on everyday life.
The title comes from the remarks of Josep Borrell, the European Union's foreign policy chief, who portrayed Europe as a garden of affluence and the rest of the world as a jungle. Darghouth challenges this binary, arguing that new divisions, barriers and borders have emerged instead. Her acrylic paintings, from 29 by 21 centimetres to three metres square, layer impasto landscapes, flowers, trees and birds over camouflage fabric or paper, with Ares, the Greek god of war, helicopters, tanks and toy soldiers appearing in certain works. In the interview she describes moving to post war Beirut in the late 1990s to study at the Lebanese University, a city of huge contrasts that has fuelled her art, and cites Bertolt Brecht's idea of art as a hammer with which to shape reality.
Tagreed Darghouth, born in Saida in 1979, is represented by Tabari.
