Who's That Girl? is a painting by Belinda Low which was uploaded on June 25th, 2013.
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Dimensions
18.000 x 18.000 x 1.000 inches
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Title
Who's That Girl?
Artist
Belinda Low
Medium
Painting - Acrylic
Description
FEATURED in FAA Portrait Gallery
Exclusively Drawings and Paintings
Images That Excite You
FAA Portrait Gallery
The Face
Excellent Self-Taught Artists.
24"x16" Print SOLD on FAA @8 August 2016
Finally I felt compelled to paint her. Such a hard life but she is a survivor nonetheless! Credits: Words By Cathy Newman Photograph by Steve McCurry
She remembers the moment. The photographer took her picture. She remembers her anger. The man was a stranger. She had never been photographed before. Until they met again 17 years later, she had not been photographed since.
The photographer remembers the moment too. The light was soft. The refugee camp in Pakistan was a sea of tents. Inside the school tent he noticed her first. Sensing her shyness, he approached her last. She told him he could take her picture. "I didn't think the photograph of the girl would be different from anything else I shot that day," he recalls of that morning in 1984 spent documenting the ordeal of Afghanistan's refugees.
The portrait by Steve McCurry turned out to be one of those images that sears the heart, and in June 1985 it ran on the cover of this magazine. Her eyes are sea green. They are haunted and haunting, and in them you can read the tragedy of a land drained by war. She became known around National Geographic as the 'Afghan girl,' and for 17 years no one knew her name.
In January a team from National Geographic Television & Film's EXPLORER brought McCurry to Pakistan to search for the girl with green eyes. They showed her picture around Nasir Bagh, the still standing refugee camp near Peshawar where the photograph had been made. A teacher from the school claimed to know her name. A young woman named Alam Bibi was located in a village nearby, but McCurry decided it wasn't her. No, said a man who got wind of the search. He knew the girl in the picture. They had lived at the camp together as children. She had returned to Afghanistan years ago, he said, and now lived in the mountains near Tora Bora. He would go get her. It took three days for her to arrive. Her village is a six-hour drive and three-hour hike across a border that swallows lives. When McCurry saw her walk into the room, he thought to himself: This is her. Names have power, so let us speak of hers. Her name is Sharbat Gula, and she is Pashtun, that most warlike of Afghan tribes. It is said of the Pashtun that they are only at peace when they are at war, and her eyes then and now burn with ferocity. She is 28, perhaps 29, or even 30. No one, not even she, knows for sure. Stories shift like sand in a place where no records exist....
Now, consider this photograph of a young girl with sea green eyes. Her eyes challenge ours. Most of all, they disturb. We cannot turn away.....
The journey that began with the loss of their parents and a trek across mountains by foot ended in a refugee camp tent living with strangers.....
In the mid-1990s, during a lull in the fighting, Sharbat Gula went home to her village in the foothills of mountains veiled by snow.......
Here is the bare outline of her day. She rises before sunrise and prays. She fetches water from the stream. She cooks, cleans, does laundry. She cares for her children; they are the center of her life. Robina is 13. Zahida is three. Alia, the baby, is one. A fourth daughter died in infancy. Sharbat has never known a happy day, her brother says, except perhaps the day of her marriage.Her husband, Rahmat Gul, is slight in build, with a smile like the gleam of a lantern at dusk. She remembers being married at 13. No, he says, she was 16. The match was arranged......
Her asthma, which cannot tolerate the heat and pollution of Peshawar in summer, limits her time in the city and with her husband to the winter. The rest of the year she lives in the mountains. At the age of 13, Yusufzai, the journalist, explained, she would have gone into purdah, the secluded existence followed by many Islamic women once they reach puberty. "Women vanish from the public eye," he said. In the street she wears a plum-colored burka, which walls her off from the world and from the eyes of any man other than her husband. "It is a beautiful thing to wear, not a curse," she says. Faced by questions, she retreats into the black shawl wrapped around her face, as if by doing so she might will herself to evaporate. The eyes flash anger. It is not her custom to subject herself to the questions of strangers.
Had she ever felt safe? No. But life under the Taliban was better. "At least there was peace and order." Had she ever seen the photograph of herself as a girl? No. She can write her name, but cannot read. She harbors the hope of education for her children. "I want my daughters to have skills," she said. "I wanted to finish school but could not. I was sorry when I had to leave."
Education, it is said, is the light in the eye. There is no such light for her. It is possibly too late for her 13-year-old daughter as well, Sharbat Gula said. The two younger daughters still have a chance. The reunion between the woman with green eyes and the photographer was quiet. On the subject of married women, cultural tradition is strict. She must not look, and certainly must not smile, at a man who is not her husband. She did not smile at McCurry. Her expression, he said, was flat. She cannot understand how her picture has touched so many. She does not know the power of those eyes. Such knife-thin odds. That she would be alive. That she could be found. That she could endure such loss. Surely, in the face of such bitterness the spirit could atrophy. How, she was asked, had she survived? The answer came wrapped in unshakable certitude. "It was," said Sharbat Gula, "the will of God."
Uploaded
June 25th, 2013
More from Belinda Low
Comments (63)
Nancy Griswold
I have the issue with this photograph as the cover, this painting is a fine tribute to her F/L
Susan Brown Slizys art signature name
What a revealing picture and story of this woman . I am so glad that you spent time writing and painting this beautiful portrait. She is one of the many who have moved forward after crushing war. Thank you Belinda for reopening my eyes . FavL
Susan Brown Slizys art signature name
What a revealing picture and story of this woman . I am so glad that you spent time writing and painting this beautiful portrait. She is one of the many who have moved forward after crushing war. Thank you Belinda for reopening my eyes . FavL
Anthony Mwangi
Amazing work. No words.
Belinda Low replied:
Thanks v much Anthony for your compliment which is encouraging. It makes me wanna paint more but due to work and time constraint but I surely will....in the not to far future!
AnnaJo Vahle
I, too, remember that wonderfully powerful photograph. I am delighted to read your description explaining how it came to be and what has happened to this beautiful woman. Your painting does her justice and expresses her so well. f/l
Belinda Low replied:
Thank you so much, AnnaJo for your kind feedback especially coming from you! Your works are awesome!
Anne Gifford
I remember seeing the striking photograph that inspired this painting (though I can't believe it was as long ago as the 1980s! Yikes!) You've painted a beautiful rendition and tribute to the image here. like/f
Doug Kreuger
What a powerful looking portrait, Belinda! The fixed stare of the eyes is captivating... L&F
Yvette Slattery
I finally found this! Can't wait for it to arrive! Beautiful!
Belinda Low replied:
Hi Yvette! I still can't believe this got sold and just wanna thank you so v much for appreciating her! May you enjoy many happy moments with her in your home. Thanks again! I feel so blessed and grateful. :-D
Belinda Low
BIG THANKS to Jim Rehlin for featuring this girl in his great group "Exclusively Drawings and Paintings" :-D
John Swartz
WOW!! I was 13 when I first seen this on the cover of National Geographic. I was too young at the time to understand the story behind it. Just the image itself had moved me and inspired me. This is so wonderfully done!! You have inspired me again!!
Belinda Low replied:
Hi John! Thanks so much for your v kind comments. Am so glad you got inspired....You made my day! :-)