KABUL — In a country where women have been barred from education, work, and free expression, one young artist is turning to paint and canvas to speak on behalf of those who no longer can.
With bold colors and deliberate strokes, Amna Yousufi, a young painter in Kabul, says she is using her art to document the unseen struggles of women — from forced marriages to the loss of public space.
“In this overwhelming darkness, art is my only window — a way to let the world hear the pain we can no longer speak,” she said in an interview.
Yousufi began painting long before the Taliban returned to power in 2021, but she says her work took on a deeper urgency after the group’s takeover.
“After the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, I realized that art could be a tool of resistance — a way to express pain and the realities we’re too afraid to say aloud,” she said. “These paintings became a language for the voices that have been silenced.”
Her work reflects the lived experiences of Afghan women — portraying themes such as domestic violence, forced veiling, and restrictions on movement and education. Many of her subjects appear faceless or behind veils, a visual motif she says represents both erasure and survival.
“This is my message to all women — whether in Afghanistan or elsewhere — who are living in the shadows,” she added.
While her work cannot be publicly displayed under current restrictions, some of her pieces have circulated quietly online and through private networks. Women’s rights activists and educators describe efforts like Yousufi’s as vital acts of defiance and remembrance.
Under the Taliban, depictions of living beings — particularly women — have been discouraged or outright banned, and the group has referred to women’s voices as “awrah,” a term used to justify silencing them in public spaces.
Still, Yousufi continues to paint — not for galleries, she says, but for memory.
“Every line, every color,” she said, “is a way of keeping our silence from becoming permanent.”
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