Dubai: During wars, when thousands of people are dying and hospitals and schools are being bombed, as is currently happening in Gaza, one wonders if art has any real relevance and a role to play. It’s easy to think. In the face of such pain and destruction, art of any kind can be seen as a luxury only available to those lucky enough to live outside of the violence. However, history shows that some of the world’s greatest artists created their most powerful works in the midst of terrible suffering and sociopolitical turmoil.
For example, in 1937, Pablo Picasso created the nightmarish painting “Guernica,” depicting the bombing of a Basque town during the Spanish Civil War. And one of Iraqi pioneer Dia al-Azzawi’s best works is a large-scale, emotional work of art based on the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres in Beirut.
Reem Anbar is a Palestinian oud player based in the UK. (Included)
As Israel’s military offensive on Gaza enters its fourth month, Palestinian artists at home and abroad are using art to express their emotions and raise awareness of the suffering endured by their compatriots. Recent exhibitions in Dubai and Beirut showed solidarity by displaying works by Palestinian artists.
Reem Anbar is a daughter of war. The musician, who was born in Saudi Arabia and raised in Gaza, reportedly became Gaza’s first female oud player, even though she never had the opportunity to study music. Amber is a master’s student in music therapy and although she now lives in Manchester, England, her memories of growing up in Gaza are still fresh. “I grew up with war,” she says. “I fought against three of them. In every war, we lost our homes, our neighbors, our friends. . . . We were literally living in prison.”
But she still found hope. Eleven-year-old Amber picked up an oud at a local summer activity center and it’s been her companion ever since. “I don’t know why, but I used to feel like it was a weapon for me. It allowed me to express myself and talk about my cause, my feelings, and my life.” she says.
Amber formed Gazelle Band in the UK in 2017. “She came here as a refugee and had no intention of doing anything with her life,” she says. “I came here for work. I go from town to town to spread Palestinian music.”
Suliman Mansour’s 1985 painting “Symbol of Hope” — Mansour says he finds himself sharing images of his older work online because “nothing has changed.” (Included)
Amber has concerts scheduled in the UK and Italy. She has been asked how she can play music when her family and her friends are being killed. But for her, her music is therapeutic.
“Even if the rockets fall, I will continue to hold on to the oud. War motivates us to sing more and make music. After all, we Palestinian artists, wherever we go, It’s about our cause,” she says. “You can convey a message through art.”
Like Anbar, 24-year-old Malak Matar is originally from Gaza and has taken refuge in the UK. She grew up in a family that appreciated poetry and art, and she says her colorful paintings, which center on women, pay homage to Palestinian tradition and visual culture. But over the past three months, her work has taken a new turn, creating raw charcoal drawings of victims of recent atrocities. She actually visited Gaza in October, and she left the day before the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel.
“This is the worst time of my life,” Matar tells Arab News. “My family is still in Gaza. Every day is a new tragedy. What is happening is genocide. Nowhere is safe.”
A recent painting by UK-based Palestinian artist Malak Matar. (Included)
In these new paintings, Matar depicts helpless infants and animals, damaged buildings, and crying women in striking monochrome tones.
“I think this is my protest as an artist, using only black and white,” she explains. “To be honest, some of the pieces were difficult, but this is my way of documenting what I see on social media through journalist and photographer accounts. Masu.”
These drawings will be exhibited at An Effort, an art residency program in London where Mattar has been selected as Artist in Residence. The violence and displacement faced by her family in Gaza has of course had a huge impact on her, but she recognizes the importance of continuing her creation.
“I believe in art. It has a role to record everything and express something in a humane and moving way,” she says. “I think it’s wrong to forget. Forgetting means betrayal. What we’re seeing is a war crime. I feel not only sad, but also angry. I can’t face the outside world. Because the outside world has let us down.”
Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, veteran Palestinian artist Suliman Mansour is also preparing to display his new surrealist-style canvases in a group exhibition in Ramallah at the end of January. These days, Mansour works slowly, not coming into the studio every day, and when he does, he sometimes only paints for an hour at a time.
Malak Matar is a Palestinian artist based in the UK. (Included)
“I’ve been talking to artists and friends, and they all have the same problem: they don’t know what to do. There’s a certain sense of loss during this time,” he says. “If you compare the situation we’re in now with the First Intifada, it had a stronger influence on art and culture. People were more creative when they were fighting. I think it was. But now we are just viewers. We sometimes talk to artists in Gaza, but their situation is terrible, they don’t have studios, their homes are destroyed. When we told them about the exhibition in Ramallah, they got very irritated and said, “We can’t even find anything to eat, so why are you talking about the exhibition?”
“At times like this, art may seem unimportant,” he continues. “But I think that if it’s not important for this generation, it’s important for future generations as well. Art reflects the soul of a particular era.”
On Instagram, images of his melancholy figurative paintings are regularly spread by young viewers. Mansour has been noticed sharing posts of old works from the 80s and his 90s. “Nothing has changed for us under occupation,” he says.
Holy Family Under the Olive Tree (acrylic and oil), Suliman Mansour, 2020. (Provided)
Dubai-based Palestinian artist Hazem Harb, like Mansour, believes art has value even in these times, despite the destruction of his family’s Gaza home for generations. I still believe that. “I still can’t accept that it’s gone,” he says. “All of our lives and memories were in that house.”
In November, Herb performed live in Dubai, painting harrowing pictures of vulnerable people on giant canvases. It is part of the charcoal series “Dystopia Is Not A Noun” and was created with evocative music.
“It was the first time in my life that I drew in front of people,” he says. “Honestly, it was a difficult experience, but it was also an expressive experience where I let out my feelings. Toward the end, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was literally painting from the gut. ”
He hopes the canvas he created in November will be installed in a museum or other public facility, serving as a reminder of the atrocities suffered in his home city.
“Art definitely has an important role to play in telling and documenting these stories,” he says.