People have asked Marc Nelson “why do you draw such ugly parts of life? Isn't art about beauty?”
The American artist's portfolio centres on difficult, often harrowing, subject matter: documenting war crimes and human rights violations occurring in Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Myanmar and the US.
But in response to such questioning, Nelson says, “You don't really know anything about art.”
Throughout his career, his work has sparked unexpected connections. His unique depictions of Syria's civil war in particular led to a friendship with one of his subjects, Mazen Al Hamada, the Syrian activist detained, tortured and recaptured under the regime of former president Bashar Al Assad.
Now, following the ousting of Assad and the tragic discovery of Al Hamada's beaten body, killed in captivity at the notorious Sednaya prison during the regime's final days, Nelson says his mission is all the more important: justice for survivors of war crimes in Syria, and beyond.
“Before, I was screaming in the dark … I think the artwork was screaming and desperate to try to be heard about what was happening. I think that was before the fall of the regime,” Nelson tells The National.
As Syrians pursue justice, Nelson explains: “With my art now, I want to talk to as many survivors as I can. I want to help with illustrating as many testimonies as I can.”
The middle school art teacher, based in the Midwestern state of Illinois, has traditionally used photographs on social media from amateur and professional journalists as “a starting point,” and seeks to “use paint and charcoal to create images that were both static and fluid.”
Each stroke of the paintbrush or charcoal grind comes with a sense of responsibility which Nelson has felt since he was a young boy. During his childhood, he discovered his grandfather's collection of graphic World War One photography. His grandfather came to the US from Belfast, Northern Ireland, during The Troubles.
That catalogue of war photographs transformed him and destroyed the all-too American notion of “war being some fun, heroic GI Joe, oh, let's go out and play swords,” he says.
His focus on Syria came after scrolling through X, then Twitter, in 2016, when an image of a man carrying a little girl in a blanket under siege in Aleppo came up on his feed.
“Her blankie was flapping in the wind, and it was just devastation all around and I was like – what am I looking at? What is this?”
At the time he didn't know exactly why, but he says he “had to” draw the image. Now, he understands the act of drawing the image as a form of processing, and commemorating, his subjects.
“Sometimes I feel like, if I don't draw a certain image, that that photo will haunt me … I have almost felt more traumatised by not doing something.”
The graphic nature of war's unfiltered imagery can lend itself to sensationalism – but there is no such indulgence in Nelson's reimagining of some of humanity's most difficult images. In the muted tones of his work, there is a sorrow that may be easier than the original graphic images for viewers to grapple with.
“I think part of me wanted to kind of meditate, to look and not pass the images by,” Nelson adds. “I didn't want to look and scroll, scroll. I wanted to actually be with that image and, sit with the image … They are human like I am, and I don't want to pass them by.”
Al Hamada was among the subjects that Nelson felt immediately compelled to draw, after watching a documentary where he famously sobbed as he detailed his experience of torture in Assad regime prison.
“Immediately, just like I did with the guy and the girl, I started drawing his face,” recalls the artist.
After sharing his artwork, the US-based Syrian Emergency Task Force eventually connected Nelson with Al Hamada online, where they developed a friendship over social media. That culminated in an emotional first in-person meeting when Al Hamada's speaking tour took him to Illinois.
When Al Hamada returned to Syria, after being lured back under false pretences by Syrian intelligence operatives, Nelson says his need to draw his friend became more intense, fearing the regime would “unperson” him “in the way the Soviets used to do”.
“My first reaction was this desperation to save everything I could and screenshot everything. I just thought, for my own self and for others, I'm just going to start using these images that I saved; draw them every week, and talk about Mazen.”
Of his friend, Nelson describes a deeply vulnerable man committed to justice. “He was basically like an open wound. He was everything within minutes, like you could see all this just flowing. He was also fearless.”
Now, he hopes his artwork captures all of Al Hamada – his gentleness; his introspection; his love of dancing to and “blasting” revolutionary music; his pain that he “wore on his sleeve, his wounds and his strength”.
Nelson explains: “He basically put his body, his mind and his soul on the line to try desperately to show the world what was going on.”
The removal of the former president has sharpened Nelson's mission. Now, his focus using his art for justice, accountability and continuing to remember his “real life hero” Al Hamada. In addition to creating art out of images online, he now wants to help Syria's survivors illustrate their memories of war crimes and violations as victims pursue justice in the international courts.
This month, the University of Michigan featured his works and hosted a panel where Nelson honoured Al Hamada's legacy. “Now, my art is not just like, blah,” he exclaims.
“I feel like it's more directed. As an artist I can at least help visualise and I can listen,” he says. “I'm trying to listen to as many people as I can. I think a lot of some survivors feel like, well, no one's going to care. But that's not true, and I want them to know it's not true.”
