This article appeared in Being Samia Halaby Issue #68 dedicated to spotlighting the journey of Samia Halaby, a Palestinian-American artist whose resilience shines through despite challenges like the cancellation of a significant exhibition at Indiana University. Halaby’s remarkable year, marked by global exhibitions and well-deserved acclaim, underscores her ability to transcend borders with art that prompts reflection on themes of identity, belonging, and social justice, serving as a bridge across cultural divides.
As an artist, Samia Halaby has sought to infuse her creations with the vitality and essence of life itself. With a profound connection to nature, she embarked on a journey to explore the very properties that animate the world around us. Through her art, Halaby delved into the intricate interplay of light, colour, and form, drawing inspiration from the organic rhythms of the natural world.
Central to Halaby’s vision has always been her deep-rooted and troubled Palestinian identity, which found expression through themes echoing the land, soil, and olive trees of her country. In her quest to evoke the spirit of her homeland, she looked to the earth itself, finding inspiration in its rugged beauty and timeless resilience. By incorporating these elements into her work, Halaby not only captured the essence of her heritage but also celebrated its enduring vitality, even as the world witnessed Palestine’s ongoing struggle to exist.
Yet Halaby’s art is not purely nostalgic, or confined to serene landscapes and idyllic scenes. Unapologetically confronting the harsh realities of history, she boldly addresses the atrocities inflicted upon her people. One such haunting chapter is the Kafr Qasim massacre of 1956, where Israeli forces brutally massacred innocent Palestinian civilians. Her visceral depictions of this tragedy serve as a stark reminder of the ongoing struggles faced by the Palestinian people.
In her pursuit of truth and justice, Halaby employs a diverse array of mediums, from traditional painting techniques to unconventional materials like paper-mâché and knit clothing. Through each stroke of her brush or weave of her fabric, she breathes life into her art, infusing it with raw emotion and unwavering conviction.
In essence, Samia Halaby’s art transcends mere representation; it pulsates with the vitality of nature and the indomitable spirit of Palestine. Through her uncompromising vision and unyielding dedication, she invites us to bear witness to the beauty, resilience, and struggles of her people, while forging a powerful testament to the human experience over a period of decades. She simultaneously provokes, challenges and inspires us.
Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky is the title of the large painting composed of five vertical panels, used as a backdrop for a dance performance of the same name. The dance was choreographed by Leslie Brian and presented in 1994 by the Dance Company Perspectives in Motion at the Pace University Theater in New York. The character of Jabberwocky originated from Lewis Carroll’s book Through the Looking-Glass, a sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I sketched the dancers during practice sessions. I had to sketch at high-speed, capturing quick impressions and glimpses of their motion. In the studio, I created lines abstracted from these sketches and painted the backdrop therefrom. Later, the dancers came to my studio in small groups wearing the leotards they would wear in performance.My abstracted lines were converted into three dimensional linear sculpture as I applied them to their bodies. Finally, in performance the abstracted line went through a new transformation, a second abstraction of the abstract in motion.
The full backdrop is a compression of the dance and the dancers as a flat image, a painting of lines revealing motion and counter motion, of stops and turns, the rhythmic pace of feet touching and jumping, and arms waving freely.
Several layers of the re-interpretation of motion are now moving simultaneously as performance. Lines on a flat piece of paper that were formed as compressed motion of the dancers had been three-dimensionally applied to the bodies of the dancers. In performance the dancers and the lines on them represent two levels of compressed motion while the backdrop contained fragments of the movement in time and various accents of their gestures and expanded it to full stage backdrop.
