Published: 15th of September, 2023 by Patrick Carpen
Last updated: September 15, 2023 at 7:32 am
A few days ago, we made a Facebook post using the picture above of a little girl holding a painting of two eggplants, also called aubergine, and colloquially referred to in Guyana as boulanger or baigan. We captioned the photo, “Amazing Artwork Done by Guyanese Painter Azeena Tahsir.” The photo went viral on Facebook garnering over 32,000 reactions and over 1000 shares in just a few days.
Unfortunately, people mistakenly thought that the little girl in the picture is Azeena Tahsir, the artist who painted the picture. The comments reflect this thought and it is obviously part of the reason the picture went viral so fast. One person commented, “what an amazing painting for such a young child,” and another said, “if she can do that at that age…wow! Real talent!”
The truth is, the little girl is not the painter of the picture. She’s just posing with it. Azeena is actually a young woman in her twenties. You can read her story here: Daughter of Berbician Farmer Finds Her Passion in Painting. The sweet little child holding the picture is actually Azeena’s 4-year-old niece. Azeena often takes pictures of other people holding her paintings, as she explains:
The little girl is my niece. She’s 4 years old. She’s a regular on my Facebook feeds along with many other kids and adults. All of these people gladly offer to hold the paintings. They would come looking for me specifically to hold the paintings.
Azeena Tahsir
This publication would like to apologize to everyone who was unintentionally misled by the Facebook post. It was never our intention to mislead anyone. Nevertheless, we can all agree that, even though it wasn’t painted by a 4-year-old, the painting is still just as stunning, and the painter, Azeena Tahsir, though not a 4-year-old, is just as worthy of applause!
