Zehra Dogan as the Shahmeran

Zehra Dogan is a Kurdish artist, journalist, activist, and feminist from the country of Turkey. For decades, Turkey has had a policy of suppressing Kurdish identity. Violence against Kurds in Turkey increased around 2015.

In 2017, Zehra Doğan was jailed for three years after being arrested on terrorism charges for her news reporting, as well as for sharing on social media an image of a painting she made of a Kurdish village destroyed by the Turkish military.

In November 2020, she showed works created in prison at a show in Istanbul, covered by ArtNet News.

I learned about Zehra while researching the Shahmeran, a mythical queen of snakes featured in Kurdish folklore. One of Zehra's works featured the Shahmeran. The Shahmeran holds the wisdom of the ages. She lives hidden in a cave in a secret garden filled with snakes. A mortal finds the cave and falls in love with Shahmeran. He promises to keep the cave secret. However, the king is ailing and is told that only the flesh of Shahmeran can heal him. Shahmeran's lover is followed and tortured until her location is revealed. She is slain...but she tricks everyone. She says her body is wisdom and life, while her head is death. Her lover eats a piece of her head, wanting to die of remorse. He gains her wisdom. The king and his advisors eat her body and die.

Shahmeran has recently become a symbol of resistance in against oppressive policies in Turkey. The Conversation reports that Shahmeran has appeared on a poster critical of Islam, accompanied by a "manifesto that called for respecting the rights of women, members of the LGBTQ community and nature itself."

In my painting, Shahmeran has the heads of Zehra Dogan, painting and speaking out even while imprisoned. Original and prints available from Saatchi Art.

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