Pareidolia, Mona Nahleh

This is pareidolia—the impulse to find stories where none exist. I paint intuitively, allowing faces and figures to surface from chaos. Like life in the Middle East, nothing is ever straightforward. We perceive through layers of memory, faith, class, and trauma. These figures are not portraits, but echoes of perception itself. What we see is never just what’s in front of us—it’s shaped by what we carry within.