Paintings

MOTHER
Acrylic on canvas, 125x87cm, 2020

Some of us fetishize the past; others feel entitled to manipulate it to stake a claim on land inhabited by its indigenous population. We cherish memories that aren’t our own from a time we never experienced. We feel connected to objects we use as evidence of our existence, an imagined past, the past of ancestors, a past that exists only in cultural remnants, stories, and artifacts that survived the constructs of time and nation. This figure of Asherah, the Canaanite mother goddess, serves as a reminder of the people and tribes of the Canaanites, Philistines, and Edomites, inhabitants of the land alongside the twelve tribes of Israel. Though historians and archaeologists may understand Asherah as representing the divine feminine or, according to the Biblical interpretation, an essential member of the Canaanite pantheon, there is no dispute over her creation from the earth of the land of her origin. This large painting of a small artifact holds in it the eternal longing of returning physically and spiritually to our mother, to the source from which we came.

MOHAMMED THE MENACE

Acrylics on canvas (102cm x 104cm)

The conversation starts with me asking the question, “have you heard of Dennis the Menace?” I watch the smile grow as waves of nostalgia flood the brain with images of a troublemaking little white boy and his signature slingshot. Then I ask, “what about Mohammed the Menace?” The combination of these words triggers an instant sense of discomfort. Why is blonde-haired American Dennis not considered threatening, but Mohammed is? In front of you stands my son, Mohammed. He wields a slingshot like Dennis, but he is only a menace in the minds of those who have fallen victim to the propaganda that slipped discreetly into their subconscious via the language, imagery and misrepresentations in news, movies, books, education, social media and social conditioning. Instead of aiming a stone at the tanks and soldiers that brutally oppress and occupy his native land of Palestine, he aims the light of awareness at you. This awareness allows you to become aware of what ideas you allow to reside in your mind and their role in shaping your emotions, judgments, and stereotypes. Blinders are lifted, revealing the greed and violence of white settler colonialism, whose intent is to dehumanize Palestinians to justify the genocide, ethnic cleansing and usurpation of Palestinian land. This awareness will dismantle the imperialistic and colonial infrastructure of your mind to feel and know truth from a place of love.