Muhammad Ansi, originally from Yemen, was detained at Guantánamo for almost 15 years before being released to Oman in January 2017. He learned to paint and draw at Guantánamo, working mainly in landscapes and still life. His art often features cities seen from far away, paths without beginning or end, and empty boats adrift at sea. These images are most often imagined – based on photographs and scenes glimpsed in movies or on television, rather than directly observed by him, such as a depiction of the Titanic, remembered from being shown the movie during an interrogation. Ansi sometimes refers to his family in his work, with his siblings symbolized as flowers and his mother mourning for him in the form of a disembodied eye.
