Images that glow from within

We met the artist Said Baalbaki. Said comes from Lebanon and showed us the many pictures he paints in his studio in Berlin-Moabit. Above all, you can see on them: Suitcases. Lots and lots of suitcases. Mountains of suitcases and landscapes of suitcases.

When Said was a small child, there was civil war in Lebanon. He saw terrible things and had to flee. He processes these experiences, dreams and nightmares in his paintings. The suitcases stand for flight. But Said believes that art must always give people hope. That's why the suitcases in some of the pictures are lying quite friendly and tidy in bright light. As if one could travel with them.

Said works on his paintings only during the day, in natural light. He sometimes uses ten brushes at the same time, so that his hand cramps. Most important to him: that the paintings glow from within!

Said says funny things. He says that he sucked up the turpentine like cereal and milk. Because his father, brother, uncle and five cousins are all painters. Because he wanted to be a painter when he was a child.

He reveals that some paintings get so big that you can only carry them out through the window. There is also a bun hanging on the wall of Said's studio. He painted it so that he, as an artist, would have enough to eat the next day. Also a belt and a burka. All the pictures always express both: hope and pain.

Said oscillates between painting and conceptual art, between day and night, darkness and light. "Painting for me is like boxing: some days the painting wins, some days the artist wins."