Fire Breather

The Special Encounters in the Digital Age

Almost every day we chat on the phone, skim through social media, or maybe watch a few episodes of our favorite TV shows. We “meet” friends and strangers in this immense virtual world. Every day, there are encounters about people, stories, and feelings - artist Raneem Tarfa is depicting all these.

Growing up during the era of a digital revolution, Raneem finds the online world her biggest inspiration. All of the virtually born characters become the actors and actresses of her show. In the portrait series, Raneem depicts different characters based on what she has seen in TV series, movies, and animations and gives them emotions to bring them to life. You may see happiness, anxiety, confusion, or sadness, or all of them - just like everyone finds different connections in different stories. She uses many bold strokes and colors to create distorted faces and puts them with newspaper collages and hand-written lyrics. The surreal presentation, together with the realistic portraits, creates tension and, at the same, time builds the bridge between the virtual and real worlds, letting the emotions naturally flow in.