ROYA ISSA

"I am grateful, that I saw the world through the eyes of everyone I met, so I lived many lives. Those lives were the creators of my paintings not me, I was just the tool."

Roya Issa

(born 1973) is a Syrian contemporary artist and painter living and working in Berlin. Although Roya has been painting since she was a child, her real career as an artist only began in Cologne, Germany in 2014.

After spending her early childhood years in Algeria, she moved back to Syria. There she pursued Fine Arts studies and graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus in 1997.

She moved to Dubai, UAE to work between 1997 and 2006 as a freelancer for various art projects. To move back afterward to Damascus and work in Set Design for Cinema and TV between 2006 and 2008.

In Damascus, she showed her first solo exhibition at Al-Mada gallery in 2009. Then started working as an art teacher at the Pakistani International School in Damascus (PISOD) until 2012.

Due to the war in Syria, Roya moved to Egypt and pursued an art career. In Cairo, she exhibited at the Opera House in 2013 and received the Lovers for Fine Arts award.

Between 2012 and 2013, she conducted a project We are Puppets with other Syrian women refugees under the sponsorship of UNHCR.

In March 2014, she was invited by Heinrich Böll Foundation as an Artist in Residence in Cologne. There she continued her artistic career, to move later to Berlin in 2018