"Woman in Somalia" was inspired by Sade’s song “Pearls,” which references the 1990 Somali famine. The lyrics follow a woman searching for pearls, small grains of rice. She survives unimaginable suffering not only physical, but mental and spiritual. Yet she remains resilient under the scorching sun, yet I paint her in the comfort of my home. I can only feel her pain through a screen, but she lives it, each and every day.
“I have never understood why some people are lucky enough to be born with the chance that I had to have this path in life, and why across the world, there’s a woman just like me—with the same abilities and the same desires—who most likely would make better films and better speeches, only she sits in a refugee camp, and she has no voice—I don’t know why this is my life and that’s hers. I don’t understand that”.
-Angelina Jolie