Not so long ago it looked like Damascus was in line to once again become a global center for art, with a burgeoning gallery scene and a growing international interest in works by Syrian artists. But glossy images from openings just a few years ago stand in stark contrast to the bloody bodies and bombed-out buildings in the headlines of 2013. World heritage sites throughout Syria are being destroyed as refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey are swelling with Syrians escaping the violence. Yet, Syrian artists are continuing to make work, building new homes abroad, and bringing their art with them.

Read More: In Syria, Galleries Become Refuges

Air raid sirens punctuate Hayv Kahraman’s earliest childhood memories. The Kurdish, Baghdad-born artist says her parents often told her about how, in 1981, when she was just three months old, they had to stop their car in the middle of a busy street to crouch under a building while missiles flew overhead.

Read More: Hayv Kahraman

Shurooq Amin is a Kuwaiti-Syrian artist, poet, and professor at Kuwait University. In two recent art exhibitions, It’s a Man’s World and Society Girls, Amin has explored themes of gender, identity, duality, religion, and hypocrisy in Middle Eastern and Arab societies. Her colorful mixed-media tableaux depict Kuwaitis in trendy clothes lounging, smoking hookah, and playing cards, their faces all eerily erased.

Read More: Masked Faces, Censored Hopes