A New Canaan treasure played a vital role in bringing together the worlds of art and activism on Thursday, 25 January, as Grace Farms hosted a moving conversation between a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, and Hannah Rose Thomas, whose luminous paintings highlight victims of violence in areas of conflict.
Thomas’s works have been on display in the Grace Farms Library as the exhibition ‘Tears of Gold,’ presented in conjunction with her book of the same name, which pairs the haunting portraits with the stories of the victims.
Victims like Hadiya, who was sold into domestic and sexual slavery to twelve different ISIS militants; Ladi, who was captured along with her mother and siblings and forced to marry a Boko Haram fighter; and Samkina, who was fifteen when she watched Myanmar military kill her father and torch their Rohingya village.
Thomas, a sweet, soft-spoken Londoner, spoke reverently of the women she met, many of whom asked her to paint them after she had spent time with them, teaching them to draw and sharing in their sorrows.
“They moved me to tears,” she said. “It’s just such a privilege to be trusted with their stories in this way.”
Zeid praised Thomas in his opening remarks, telling the sold-out audience of 85 gathered in the intimate Library that “she will be one of the world’s most famous artists… and you will have this privilege. [This] will be the day that you remember you sat with Hannah.”
Zeid then began his thoughtful questioning with something inextricable from Thomas’s subject matter: faith.
“I look to express a sense of how we are all made in the image of God,” said Thomas. “I believe that each of us are of equal value, no matter what we have experienced…there is such beauty in each and every person.”
Thomas captures this beauty through her method of “sacred” painting — traditional techniques dating back to the Renaissance — using all-natural materials ground into pigments and often mixed with egg yolks to create a quick-drying tempera.
The images have captivated HRH King Charles III, who selected several works for a special exhibition at Buckingham Palace in 2018, and even wrote the foreword to ‘Tears of Gold,’ which is available from publisher plough.com and all quality booksellers.
Speaking of the need for pairing the paintings with the written word, Thomas said, “the whole purpose of the paintings is to share women’s stories. It feels wrong to show them without the stories.”
Zeid, now President and CEO of the International Peace Institute, noted that the world, after “centuries of human suffering” has a need for something subliminal, “that makes us have some faith in the human condition, which is often expressed in artistic form.”
Neither Zeid nor Thomas wished to overshadow the real subjects of the work, however. Of her experience in the spotlight, Thomas said, “you want to always be reflecting it back onto the women.”
With audience questions, the conversation turned towards how events such as these can help to advance the causes of peace and justice in the world.
Grace Farms Founder and CEO Sharon Prince said this is integral to Grace Farms’ mission.
“[Art] is elemental to our space. It actually brings issues near that are difficult.”
“There are so many outcomes that germinate,” she continued. Indeed, Grace Farms will host its third annual Design for Freedom Summit on 26 March 2024, a day for over 800 attendees from across industries to unite in the fight against forced and child labour in the building materials supply chain.
Featured that day will be Nasreen Sheikh, a Nepali woman who escaped forced labour and modern slavery, who will be the next subject for Thomas’s unflinching yet loving gaze.
“The things that happen here, they compound,” Prince told the audience. “There’s an appetite — and we do have agency. Maybe you buy a book and you have it on your table and somebody sees it, and something else happens.”
For Thomas, the future holds the completion of her PhD, and one day the “distant dream” of a foundation that funnels any funds from her paintings back to the victims — most of whom have seen their finished images, and some of whom have been back in touch to thank her.
For those gathered that night in New Canaan, Prince said, “I just want you to remember, this is a moment.”
