Some art is made to decorate a room. Other art is made because the artist had no other way to say what she needed to say. The Fibromyalgia Collection by Syrian artist Lana Almouakeh belongs firmly to the second kind.
An invisible illness, made visible
Fibromyalgia is a long-term condition that causes widespread pain, deep fatigue and disturbed sleep. From the outside, people living with it often look completely well, which is exactly what makes it so isolating. Lana was diagnosed eight years ago. In the early years, she says, she lost her sense of herself and her hope for the future.
What brought her back was painting. Encouraged by her mentor, the late artist Ayman Al-Daqr, she returned to the canvas and began painting the things she could not easily explain in words: the burning, the exhaustion, the sleepless nights and the smile she wore over all of it.
The symbols in the collection
Look across the sixteen paintings and you will start to see a visual language repeating itself.
The purple butterfly
Purple is the colour of fibromyalgia awareness, and a purple butterfly appears in almost every piece. Sometimes it is pinned down by threads, as in Still Surviving… Still Alive. Sometimes it rests on broken ground, still ready to fly, as in Keep Moving. It is Lana’s symbol for the self that survives.
Two faces
In Hide Behind a Smile, two faces share one head: one calm, one crying out. In Mirror Mirror on the Wall and Broken, a woman confronts a reflection that does not match the person she feels she is. Anyone living with an invisible illness knows that double life well.
Fire, chains and time
Pain is painted as flame in Burn and in the largest work of the collection, Life with Pain. It becomes chains and iron weights in Trapped and My Pain. Lost time appears as an hourglass wrapped in roses in Losing Time, and as clocks and compasses in Always Tied.
Damascene patterns
Behind several figures, in Exhausted, My Pain and My Butterfly Effect, you will find geometric lattices and rosettes that echo the traditional designs of Damascus, the city Lana comes from. Even in the hardest paintings, home is in the background.
Sleep, fog and exhaustion
Two of the most recognisable pieces for people with fibromyalgia are Insomnia, where a figure sits between the moon and the sun with medicine bottles at her feet, and On My Mind, where a woman’s thoughts become a tangled crown of coloured yarn, Lana’s image of the “fibro fog” that so many people describe.
Why collectors connect with this work
These paintings are not only for people who live with chronic pain. They speak to anyone who has carried something heavy quietly: grief, burnout, illness in the family, or simply the effort of keeping going. Many collectors choose a piece because it reminds them of their own resilience, or as a meaningful gift for someone who is fighting.
Every painting is an original on canvas. Only one exists, and once it is sold it will not be repeated. Delivery is free within the UAE, and international shipping can be arranged on request.
Explore the collection
Browse all sixteen works in the Fibromyalgia Collection, read more about Lana’s journey, or see the brighter, hopeful side of her work in the Flowers Collection.