Maan Jalal The 1948, Nakba changed the Middle East forever. Since then, writers, artists, filmmakers, thinkers and creatives from the region have attempted, through various mediums, to understand and reconcile the social and political ramifications of the ethnic cleansing. In particular, there is a generation of renowned Palestinian artists, most of whom were expelled from Palestine, who have used their work as a means to make sense, connect or archive and voice what happened to their families, their homeland and how their identity has been and continues to be attacked.
Among the abundance of important Palestinian artists, five innovative and pioneering figures have created pivotal work from a stylistic perspective that also narratively contributes to the visual story of Palestinian identity, resistance and freedom. These are the five Palestinian works you should know about that exemplify important artistic milestones and crucial cultural representation of the Palestinian narrative. Painter and art historian Ismail Shammout is considered a pioneer of contemporary Palestinian art.
Shammout’s realistic, symbolic and slightly expressive style has been a means for him to chronicle the experiences of Palestinian people. A constant subject matter in his work is the Nakba, an event in which his own family were expelled from their home in Palestine. In his work , painted in 1997, Shammout tackles the universal theme of mother and child – a theme that has been particularly explore.
