Freedom’s
Reflection
Freedom’s
Wexford artist Rima El-Hajje illuminates the evolution
of immigration in award-winning painting.
BY JENNIFER BROZAK
O
ne local woman’s award-winning painting
represents her evolution as both an artist and an
immigrant to the United States.
This June, Rima El-Hajje, 50, won the North Hills
Art Center spring regional art show for her work, “Ellis
Island Bathroom.”
The painting depicts a cold and stark bathroom in
which light shines through a window, illuminating only
the sinks and dirty mirror. Reflected in the mirror is the
Statue of Liberty.
El-Hajje, who lives in Wexford, says she drew
her inspiration for the painting from a Steve Wilkes
photography exhibit she visited while in New York City.
The exhibit portrayed rooms in abandoned buildings at
Ellis Island. As a native of Tripoli, Lebanon, the exhibit
spoke to her.
“As an immigrant who chose the United States as
a permanent home, I fell in love with the series and
bought the prints to paint them,” she explains. “My piece
reflects the evolution of my painting over the years, but
more importantly, the evolution of my identity as an
immigrant, which has been a big part of my life and how I
understand what it means to be an American.”
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She says she was drawn to the bathroom photo in
particular because of its symbolism.
“At first glance, the photo is of a drab bathroom with
cracked and stained walls, symbolizing poverty and
hardship,” she says. “However, upon closer inspection,
visible in the dingy bathroom mirror is a reflection of
the Statue of Liberty, representing freedom for all—a
concept that I strongly support.”
Freedom is a crucial principle to all immigrants who
leave their homes and countries in search of a better life,
she explains. “This country and its communities were
built by immigrants working to knit together their past
and their future, creating their own unique identity, their
own voice. This process brings the best of their ‘old’
and ‘new’ home together, creating a far better American
nation as a result.”
This, she explains, is why she picked the Ellis Island
bathroom for a painting.
“I saw in the bathroom both the struggles and hopes I
experienced in the process of realizing my new identity,”
she says.
El-Hajje first arrived in the U.S. in 1988, during the
Lebanese civil war, to attend graduate school. She earned
her Ph.D. in experimental social psychology from the