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Anita

http://kurdishglobe.net/displayArticle.jsp?id=085109A7A91DD32969
By Kamal Chomani
The Kurdish Globe

The first news Espander ever heard about Kurds and Kurdistan was about the former Baath Regime's gassing of Halabja town, which resulted in the murder of thousands of civilians.
Much of Espander's art is about Kurdish landscapes and the flowers that grow wild in the Kurdistan mountains. And even though she has never been here, it is through the vision of several Kurdish writers and painters that she has acquainted herself with the nature of the Region.
Espander decided to become a painter after a visit to the National Art Gallery in Denmark where she saw a fantastic painting of a flower. Since then, she has opened many exhibitions, individually and together with other artists, at Haderslev Art Centre, at Tørning Mølle, at the "Old Prison" in Ribe, in Vellingkollers, Germany, and at various galleries, retirement homes, and shops. Currently, some of her water colors are on display on the island of Læsø.
Espander is very keen on water-color painting, a difficult and challenging art form. She said water colors are very difficult to control, and sometimes it is the lively colors themselves that produce the painting. Espander also paints in oils and acrylics. She is exhilarated at beginning a new painting on a blank canvas to see what she can produce. She paints porcelain and glass as well.
In her paintings about Kurdistan, she depicts springs, valleys, mountains, flowers, and portrait of Kurdish men and women in traditional Kurdish dress.
"Some of my paintings portray nature in Kurdistan. Unfortunately, much of [nature] was ruined by Saddam Hussein, but it is beginning to recover its beauty again," said Espander.