Selected
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autoethnography
/ Research
Themes in Post-national Palestinian Art
This ongoing research challenges the confinement of Palestinian Art to nationalistic motifs through the exploration of concepts in contemporary art among Palestinian artists.
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This study is a qualitative inquiry that aims, first and foremost, to expand the grounds of aesthetics and art criticism regarding contemporary Palestinian art well beyond the limits of the overarching themes of “place” and “dis-orientalism.” It also aims to probe for the existence of authentic, individualistic, and avant-garde experiences among contemporary Palestinian artists, who use their art to transcend their sense of a collective and national identity, in order to deliver more universal and post-nationalistic messages to their audiences.
The study argues for an expanded critical framework that recognizes postnational, transnational, and globally interconnected dimensions within contemporary Palestinian art. Ultimately, it proposes a redefinition of Palestinian visual culture that accommodates plurality, individuality, and avant-garde experimentation beyond exclusively nationalistic discourse.
/ Research
ArabEx: Arabesque Expressionism
Synthesizing elements of Islamic ornamental tradition and mid-20th-century Abstract Expressionist practice, Arabesque Expressionism draws from the historic arabesque’s formalized floral and geometric systems, he employs action painting, gestural brushwork, and improvisational mark-making to reinterpret decorative structure through the lens of modernist abstraction. The work situates ornament not as embellishment, but as a site of conceptual and painterly inquiry.
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According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Arabesque can be defined as a style of formal aesthetics characterized by intertwining plants and abstract curvilinear and geometric motifs. Derived from the work of Hellenistic craftsmen working in Asia Minor, the arabesque originally included birds in a highly naturalistic setting. As adapted by Muslim artisans about 1000 AD, it became highly formalized; no birds, beasts, or human figures were included. The arabesque became an essential part of the decorative tradition of Islamic cultures.
Expressionism, and particularly Abstract Expressionism, is a term that describes a broad movement in American painting that began in the late 1940s and became a dominant trend in western painting during the 1950s. Abstract Expressionist painting emphasizes free, spontaneous, and personal emotional expression. It also exercises considerable freedom and intuitiveness in the application of paint; an improvisational technique similar to the automatism of the Surrealists.
Arabesque Expressionism is a descriptive term I coined to define a style used in this body of work. In this body of work, I used Abstract Expressionism painting techniques like action painting, drip paint, and loose brush strokes to create images of arabesque floral and geometric motifs. As a painter, my work reflects, above all, the joy of the act of painting. Such joy that comes from discovering the visual power of paint when the artist unleashes all its potentials.
/ Research
Cultural Assimilation Among Palestinian Immigrants in New Mexico
This ethnographic study explores how members of the Palestinian diaspora in New Mexico negotiate immigrant identity and assimilation. It argues that the community operates within a transnational framework, simultaneously embedded in American life while sustaining enduring ties to Palestine.
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This is an ethnographic research project that was done among a group of Palestinian-American businessmen in Smallville , New Mexico, in the southwestern United States. The research question that guided both the theory and data collection methods is: How and why do Palestinian-Americans maintain or negotiate the boundaries of their immigrant group in Smallville, NM? How is this related to the process of their cultural assimilation into the life of Smallville?
The fieldwork that was behind this study took place between July 11th and August 13th, 2005. In this study I gave a brief historical preview of the Palestinian immigration to the United States. I provided an ethnographic text describing the current Palestinian community in a small town in New Mexico. I concluded that Palestinian-Americans are today in a transnational situation, enabling them to both live and work in two, and sometimes more than two, countries including their country of origin, Palestine.
/ Research
Victory Boogie-Woogie
Victory Boogie Woogie proposes an interdisciplinary theatrical production that dramatizes Piet Mondrian’s evolution from naturalism to abstraction, translating his Neo-Plastic philosophy and Theosophical idealism into a synthesis of stage design, movement, music, and visual composition.
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This is a proposal for a theatrical project that is based on the philosophy and work of Piet Mondrian. Very much like a restless researcher, and since the early beginnings of his career as a painter, Mondrian strove to identify the rudimentary elements of his craft. A closer look at his work shows how he was gradually and systematically, reducing his rendition of “nature” to its basic formal elements: three primary colors (red, yellow and blue), three “non-colors” (white, black and gray) and a grid of vertical and horizontal lines. Having identified these basic
formal elements, Mondrian began using them in a lyrical manner to compose a series of abstract paintings that captured the attention of the art world with their simplicity, elegance, and visual appeal. This
colorful journey, both literally and metaphorically, from figurative to
abstract art made Mondrian one of the founding figures of modernism in Western art, and one of the most renowned and interesting artists around the world.
Historical documents and Mondrian’s own writings indicate that his career as a painter had always been driven by deep cosmological beliefs combined with a reflective and contemplative practice. As an artist, I found in his biography inspiring material for both a dramatic plot and a visual spectacle. This research focuses on the development of a theatrical production that is inspired, both dramatically and visually, by the “evolution” of Mondrian’s abstraction. I see in this project the potential for a collaborative work among the three areas of arts; theatre and dance, music and visual art.
/ Projects
Translator, Border to Baghdad Project
Throughout the month of October 2013, two groups from Texas and Iraq interacted via Skype and social media to exchange information, images, and ideas through a series of artistic exercises developed and led by Szu-Han Ho and Rijin Sahakian.