Palestinian art gains momentum

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Karen Hasin-Bromley reports on a recent exhibition in Canterbury

‘Resilience & Light’, the exhibition recently held at the University of Kent’s Studio 3 Gallery, was the first international exhibition to be held there and arose  though a collaboration with Arts Canteen, whose aim is to ‘explore artistic relationships’ between the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Europe. The exhibition brought together contemporary Palestinian artists from Gaza, London, Venice, Paris and Dubai and features works by Laila Shawa, Taysir Batniji, Hazem Harab, Mohammed Joha and Hani Zurob.

The only female artist in the exhibition was Laila Shawa.  Born 1940 in Gaza, she is a descendant of one of the oldest landowning Palestinian families and lives and works in London and Vermont.  Fittingly, her works on display reflect concern and draw attention to the position of women and children in Palestine. Inside Paradise (2011, photography and mixed media on canvas)contrastsa central scene of devastation,focusing on photographs of burned children,with a surrounding boarderof traditional Islamic patterns and exotic coloured birds. It is if you were looking through a window of tradition at a view of the present. Other images strikingly juxtapose traditional and Western cultures.

More light-hearted but still focused on the theme of tradition versus modern is We Can (Impossible Dreams) (2011, photography and mixed media on canvas). A comment on women’s role in society, it depicts the glitter (literally) of comic book sirens flaunting their sexuality,  surrounded by photographs of women in traditional dress.  Shawa is also represented in this exhibition with the geometry of her Islamic design paintings.  She has commented that she views these as reflecting on how she views Dubai ‘as a modern city rising from the desert, as a place devoid of cultural identity, which I represent through the geometry of Islamic design. Once altered, the immutable laws of Islamic geometry lose their validity, resulting in chaos.’ The paintings in this series ask what is left of Arab culture when the pattern of the culture itself goes awry.

Taysir Batniji was also born in Gaza, in 1966 and lives in Paris.  Since the 1990s he has worked mainly with video and photography and is represented in the exhibition with his film My Mother, David and Me (2012).  His work seeks to document life in Palestine, with the artist assuming the position of witness.

Hazem Harab,  born in 1980 in the Gaza Strip, has worked in Rome since 2005. The two works he displayed concern themselves with human suffering as a result of war. I will wait for you forever (2010, mixed media on collage and canvas) and There is much on this earth worth living for (2010, mixed media on collage and canvas) deal with separation and are unsettling, with strong images and jarring colours.  He commented in the Al Arabiya News (published May 2013) that ‘I use faces embodying the forgotten past like the history of Palestinian people which is in a state of complete oblivion.’

Mohammed Joha, born in Gaza in 1978, also lives in Italy. His artwork is based on his personal experiences of living in Gaza. In contrast to the other works in the exhibition his are based on a dark pallet. In Freedom (2009, acrylic on canvas) the viewer is confronted by a female figure holding out a dove.  The blurred edges and muted colour scheme seems to emphasize how nebulous is the idea of peace in Palestine.

Hani Zurob, born in a Refugee Camp, in Gaza, in 1976, now lives in Paris.  The nature of Palestinian identity is a main theme of his works. ‘What I try to do when I paint is to rewrite my life; I try to place myself as a witness of the situations and the events I experience.’  The Arab Spring is not yet complete (2011, mixed media on canvas) has been used as the poster for the exhibition. It’s a large imposing work and stencil-like in its style; it is an explosion of imagery.

Palestinian art is a genre gathering speed.  The ‘Despite’ exhibition held at the Rich Mix Gallery in Bethnal Green at the end of last year showcased 16 Palestinian artists.   Curated by Aser El Saqqa (who proposed ‘Resilience & Light’) and Nicola Gray, it contained several of the artists whose works also appeared in ‘Resilience & Light’. This upsurge in interest comes at a time when Palestinian artists are working to overcome censorship and the problems created by the relationship between Israel and Palestine. These artists, though they have chosen to leave their homeland physically, to allow for greater artistic freedom of expression, appear still to consider Palestine home.