Amman-based artist Jude Samman creates strikingly realistic paintings — the kind that make you pause for a second, because it is hard to believe they are actually painted.

At 18, Jude moved to Canada on her own to study fine arts at Queen’s University. She missed home — and that is when she started noticing and holding onto the small things that bring it back: jasmine, pomegranates, the desert, cats.

When we spoke, we kept coming back to this idea of “home.” What does it mean to her, and why? We talked about a teacher who saw something in her work that no one — not even Jude herself — had noticed at the time. And of course, we spoke about her work and the meanings it holds.

— Hey Jude, I want to sing your name!

— Haha! My parents honestly really loved The Beatles. And that song definitely played a role in why they chose it for me.

It is also an old Bedouin name in the region. There weren’t many people named Jude in the past, though — it has become more popular recently.

— So I read that your mom was the one who introduced you to the art world, right?

— Yes. She was the one who encouraged me — she saw something in me and how much I loved drawing. She pushed me to take art classes outside of school.

That said, the person who really instilled this passion in me was an art teacher I had, a well-known artist in Jordan named Aziz Amoura. He was someone who truly pushed me and helped me see my potential as a drawer. Through him, I gained the confidence to study fine arts at university.

— Your mom and teacher saw something in your drawings. Looking back at those drawings now, what do you think they saw?

— My teacher was very much an academic teacher. I only studied drawing and watercolour with him — I never even moved on to painting, because he believed in fully mastering drawing first. Unfortunately, he passed away before I had the chance to learn painting from him.

His teaching was very slow and methodical. It focused on the basics — how to hold the pencil, how to control pressure, how lightly to shade. Looking back at those drawings now, I’m honestly surprised by my own patience. I don’t think I could do that again today.

We would spend hours on a single still life — sometimes two or three lessons just on one piece. That is how detailed the process was. They weren’t perfect, of course, but I’m still impressed that I was able to draw like that without using a grid, because he didn’t believe in that.

For him, it was about truly seeing the object. Not just drawing an apple, but that specific apple, including all its imperfections. It taught me how to see, and that is something I have carried with me ever since.

I’m very grateful to Aziz for everything. He believed in me more than I believed in myself. At the time, I thought my drawings were really bad, but he saw something in me that I couldn’t see.

I was also one of his youngest students. At first, he didn’t even want to take me because I was too young. But eventually, he gave me a chance. After that, he would thank my mom at every lesson for bringing me to him.

— One of the key concepts in your work is “home.” And I know you lived in Canada for a while. How was it for you to leave home?

— Leaving home definitely changed the way I see it. It had a big impact on the kind of work I did in university, because it made me appreciate all the small details I used to take for granted. It also made me reflect more on where I come from and what shapes my identity.

I started to see home not just as a place, but as something carried through objects and memories. It made me think: How do we take home with us? How do we find it in things like a jasmine flower or a pomegranate?

It also deepened my appreciation for the Arab poets we studied growing up. Many of them lived in exile and wrote beautifully about home, often using symbolism. After leaving, I understood their work on a much deeper level. I could relate to that sense of longing, how something as simple as a cup of coffee, a scent, or a flower can hold the feeling of home.

So for me, home exists in the senses. It is not always tied to a physical place.

I think that, especially in this region, people often learn to find home in things rather than in a location, because displacement is such a common experience. In that sense, it becomes a form of resistance.

Leaving home made me see how romanticism and symbolism can be powerful tools—not just for expression, but for longing, connection, and remembering.

— What are these small details that you missed the most?

— That is a good question. Food is definitely a big one, especially my mom’s home-cooked meals. I really missed things like hummus, mutabbal, falafel, and even simple breakfast foods. I also missed our spices and ingredients. I used to bring things like za’atar and dates with me, because in Kingston it was hard to find them.

I also missed the people, the music, the hospitality, the sense of care. Even small things like how much we value cleanliness.

But more than anything, I missed family and that sense of community. I feel like there is a much stronger sense of community back home. In comparison, things felt more distant, and connections didn’t always feel as genuine.

And then there are the little, everyday details: the sand, the jasmine flowers, the street cats. I really missed seeing cats everywhere!

— What was hardest for you when you came to Kingston alone for your studies?

— I went to a university that wasn’t in a big city. I studied at Queen’s University in Kingston, which is more of a small town built around the university.

So it wasn’t like being in a multicultural city, and that made it a bit harder for me to adjust and understand the culture and the people.

It took me a long time to find friends and people I really connected with. In my art program, especially, I felt quite different. The themes I wanted to explore were more political, and I was worried they might be misunderstood.

I was the only international student in my program, and most of my professors were Canadian. That created a kind of distance; I wasn’t sure how my work or perspective would be received. I sometimes felt my ideas weren’t taken seriously, which left me feeling a bit intimidated and misunderstood.

I have always been drawn to topics like war, migration, and exile. But being in that environment, I started to wonder if I was “too intense,” especially when others were focusing on lighter subjects. That is partly why I turned to symbolism — it allowed me to express those ideas in a more subtle way.

On top of that, COVID disrupted everything. My second year was entirely online, and I spent it back in Jordan. I missed out on a lot — both socially and academically. There were things in my fine arts program, like printmaking, that I never got the chance to fully explore.

That said, I did have a professor who really supported me. Her name is Sylvat Aziz; she is from Pakistan. She encouraged me to embrace political themes and helped me develop my ideas and compositions. I used to go to her even outside of class because I really admired her and her work.

So overall, it was a challenging time but also an important learning experience.

— Thanks for sharing. Now, I would love to ask you about some of your works — like Mist, We Need a Miracle, and Minna w fina. What are they about? And are they from the same series?

— Yes. These works came from a very specific moment. I created them after October 7th. It made me reflect deeply on resilience — how people can endure so much pain and destruction yet still hold on to hope.

It felt like they were seeing something beyond what we can see. That idea led me to think a lot about the unseen world. It is also connected to my faith. In Islam, belief in the unseen is central: belief in the afterlife, in angels, in something beyond our physical reality.

So I started exploring that through my work, using imagination and creativity to try to visualise what that unseen dimension might feel like.

We Need a Miracle, in particular, is about hope and resilience. There is a man fishing in the desert, which seems impossible, but the idea is that there is something beneath the surface, something unseen. It reflects that sense of hope, even in the most difficult circumstances.

The same idea carries into Mist; it is about trying to access or imagine that unseen world through symbolism and surreal imagery.

— I’m also really curious about your green works, like Seven Moons and All That Is One. They feel very different from your other pieces. Why?

— Those two paintings are definitely quite different from the rest of my work. I wanted to experiment more and let go a bit, to be more spontaneous in my process.

I used acrylic paint almost like watercolour. I didn’t use any white paint at all, so all the white you see is just the canvas showing through. I worked with a lot of water and even used a spray bottle, letting the paint drip and move freely. Then I would respond to those shapes — seeing figures emerge from the drips and building on them.

It was a much more intuitive and fluid process compared to my usual work.

Conceptually, I was really interested in the idea of oneness. I had been thinking a lot about the land and how everything is connected. Using a single colour helped reinforce that idea, because everything blends into each other and comes from the same source.

You can see this in how forms and figures almost merge into the landscape, as within the bark of a tree — it all becomes one.

Seven Moons is also inspired by Islamic cosmology. Around that time, I began engaging more deeply with religion in my work, reflecting on what the Quran says about the land and the natural world.

Before, my references to nature — like pomegranates or jasmine — were more cultural. But then I became more interested in the spiritual dimension: how nature exists, how it is described, and what it means in a religious context.

So these works really mark the beginning of that shift in my practice — and they have influenced the direction I’m exploring now in my residency.

— Also, I would love to ask you about the work What Music Feels Like. It seems to have many layers.

— This piece was part of the series I worked on in university, which was all about home.

When I was reflecting on what home feels like, I realised it feels a lot like music. For me, that is what home is. It is comfort, joy, and connection, and that is why I linked it to music.

With this painting, I wanted to recreate that feeling through a landscape. My intention was to activate the senses. The jasmine flowers represent the smell of my neighbourhood. The pomegranates reflect taste and generosity — they remind me of my grandmother’s kitchen, where we would sprinkle them over dishes. The sand represents touch — the physical feeling of the land.

In some of my other works, I also include cats, which represent the everyday sounds of my neighbourhood.

So I was trying to build a world from my own memories, using all these sensory elements to express what home feels like to me.

All the imagery in the painting comes from my personal archive. For example, I used a photo of my grandmother watering plants, and images of pomegranates. I also went to Wadi Rum in Jordan to take reference photos of the desert.

— I believe every artist has works we haven’t seen yet. Do you have pieces you haven’t shown?

— Yes. They are not really finished; I just never felt ready to share them.

I have one I would love to show you. It is inspired by images I have seen of children in Palestine and how they climb everything. I found that really fascinating!

— You also created a work with kids from Gaza holding candles. They are inspired by Fatima Shbair's photos, right?

— Yes, I made those after October 7th. They are based on images of children in Gaza. The flame in the painting is shaped like the map of Palestine.

Honestly, when I first saw these photos, I didn’t know what to do. I felt completely paralysed as an artist. I kept thinking, “What am I even doing? There’s nothing meaningful I can paint.”

So I reached a point where it felt like either I paint about Gaza and the destruction, or I don’t paint at all.

But I couldn’t stop creating. I was really moved by these photos of children in Gaza, especially images of them holding light. So I started from there, reworking those images and adding elements like the cat.

The cat is something I have used before; it is a recurring symbol in my work. I remember seeing similar moments during the war in Syria, where children would play with cats. To me, the cat represents truth. It has always existed on this land — it is part of it, just like we are.

So in my work, the cat becomes a kind of witness. It carries memory, it understands the land, and it always moves toward liberation. It also represents the bond between a child and a cat, which is something very pure.

In this painting, I was also thinking about what liberation might look like. For me, it is a moment where symbols of resistance are no longer needed. For example, the watermelon appears shattered because there is no longer a need to hide identity behind symbols.

You also see jasmine growing from the desert, which feels almost miraculous, and a new generation of children witnessing that moment.

— What is next for you? Do you have any plans you would like to share?

— Yes! Right now, I’m part of an amazing residency in Qatar. It is under the direction of Wael Shawky and takes place at Doha Fire Station as part of the AISP residency program.

It is a nine-month program, and it is really giving me the time to focus on research and explore the themes I’m interested in.

What has been most valuable is the freedom to experiment without the pressure of producing finished work. For the first time, I don’t feel like I need to create final pieces for an exhibition. I can just explore, play, and really dive into my ideas.

Being surrounded by other artists and having access to mentors has also been incredibly inspiring. It has helped me grow a lot and see art from a completely new perspective.

So overall, it has been a really important experience for me so far.