Copy: The National 07/12/11 >> Artist Piers Secunda wanted to chronicle the most important natural resource of our times; oil. But he took his interest to obsessive lengths – he decided he wanted to depict the pioneering age of the petrochemical industry by actually painting in...

Copy: The National, 01/12/11 >> Lamia Ziade grew up in the midst of the Lebanese civil war, seeing her apartment destroyed, her parents trapped in the other side of town from her, and her country “collapse into homicidal madness.” She told me she was, quite naturally, scarred...

Nice obituary in The National of one of my favourite painters, including an obligatory shoehorned-in reference to East Anglia. “Lucian Freud was a still a teenager when he learnt arguably his most important lesson in painting. As the Second World War broke out across Europe, he attended...

Copy: The National, 18/10/2011 >>Rashid Rana is the star of the show at the Asia Triennial Manchester, and the Pakistani artist deserves such attention. After really enjoying this retrospective, I spoke to him as he travelled back to his homeland, praise ringing in his ears. The...

There’s not much that can be more timely than an exhibition by a Syrian artist in London which “reflects the personal tragedies of everyday contemporary Syrian reality.” I went down to speak to him for The National, and although his English wasn’t brilliant, these...