Biography of Atem Aleu
My name is Atem Thuc Aleu; I am an artist from Sudan. I was granted asylum in the United States in March of 2001. Since arriving I have continued to pursue my artistic interests and am now attending Brigham Young University to studies art. Before I came to U. S. A. I started art at Kakuma Refugee Camp in 1994,1 started my practice by using watercolor and then I moved onto acrylic and oil. Most of my paintings are from memory, observation and imagination. I draw and paint about what happened in my daily life to help people understand what happened to me. I want to show my new neighbors in Utah what life was like in Africa. I want them to know about my culture. I also want to tell them about the civil war in my country, and how it changed my life and those of my people. My history is part of my paintings, but it is not all of me. I think that you will know this when you see my paintings.
I want people who see my work to know that I am other thing in addition to being a Refugee. Sometimes, my history- the history of my people-has been said. But we cannot be known only by what has passed. We have to present and a whole future together, my travels to America and my life in Utah is one part of the story. That is what I think of when I think of "cultural development." It is being an African in America, and learning to live in two cultures. My art shows my journey and my own cultural evolution. My paintings are about Africa and life in the Refugee Camp, but they are also about hope for the freedom of my people and the beauty I know in my new home in America.
While I was at Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, four months ago, I helped organize ARAC (the African Refugee Artists Club). It was diverse group of Refugee with a variety of art experience and skills, whose members, ages ranged "between" 16-30. I formed the Club as a way to organize refugee efforts as I strived to use their art to tell their stories for the benefit society. We had all had to face the difficulties of life as refugee and I felt that I had much to offer through combining refugee efforts and sharing refugee experiences and their visions for a better life. I used my paintings to tell my story and the stories of the thousands of other young men (Lost Boys) just like me. Because I was led to America by the hand of God and so I feel it my responsibility to tell the world about what we went through in Sudan.
I feel incredibly blessed that I have been able to come to the United States. To show my gratitude for this tremendous opportunity, I want to create this African Refugee Artists Club as nonprofit organization to once again organize efforts to share the refugee experience. The ARAC that I want to create would benefit all they Refugee, not only those artists living in the United States, but also those still living in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. I want to thank all people of the United States, especially the government, for their help with my resettlement. With out them, the journey, the story and the evolution would tell another tale.
Untitled by Atem Aleu
