MOSCOW: A Russian state museum has mounted an exhibit of artwork by the daughter of slain Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi, dedicated to her father’s memory.

Aisha, 47, is Qadhafi’s fifth child and only daughter.

Qadhafi ruled the North African country from 1969 until he was captured and killed in 2011.

On Friday, the State Museum of Oriental Art in Moscow opened a six-week exhibit of dozens of Aisha’s artworks, including a painting of a crowd hovering over the corpses of her father and her brother who was killed alongside him. The painting shows members of the crowd using smart phones to snap pictures of the bodies.

“Today, I show these works for the first time to honour my father and my brother on the anniversary of their deaths,” she told reporters ahead of the opening. “I can tell you that these pictures are painted not with my hand, but with my heart.”

Aisha Qadhafi left Libya in 2011. The family says her husband and two of her children were killed in Nato air strikes and bombings of the Qadhafi compound in Tripoli. She gave birth to her fourth child in Algeria and settled in Oman.

Igor Spivak, the chairman of Russian Mideast Society, who organised the exhibit with support from Russia’s foreign ministry and other bodies, said he had proposed the exhibition to her in Oman, and she had quickly agreed.

“She knows that the people in Russia love her, love her father and want to see her art in Russia.”

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2024