fruit-Full:

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I decided to use Fruits as my main subject, because of its strong symbolism in art. It has a strong history, dating back 3000 years to Ancient Egypt. It can depict life or death depending on how it's represented in a painting, it is also a stance on how life is short (Mitchell, 2016). As well, fruit has significant meaning in different cultures and religions today. One of my favorite well known, prominent Palestinian artists is Sliman Mansour. His work shows the resilience of the beautiful Palestinian people and culture. He uses a lot of fruits, vegetables, plants and nature. All these organic elements are symbolic to what had happened, and still is happening, in Palestine. For example, His use of orange trees are a representation of the great loss that happened in the Nakba of 1948, as the farmers were known for them, and olive trees for the occupation of 1967. He worked with a lot of natural material from the Palestinian land, like henna, clay and mud (Monsour).

 

One of the many symbolic fruits that represents Palestine today is the watermelon, and the story behind it is one to be told. I found an article written by Billy Anania that best explained what had happend. Since the war, there has been a ban on all public displays of the Palestinian flag of any kind. Whether it's advertisements, publications or photographs, any could result in imprisonment. To the point of banning the use of the flags colors, red, green, black, and white, in any kind of art since 1967 until today. In the 1980s, zionist forces arrested Sliman Mansour and two other artists Nabil Anani and Isam Bader, for having the colors of the Palestinian flag in their work. The occupier Israeli police chief tried to, first bribe, then threaten them to remove any political art from the exhibition they had in Ramallah at the time. “He then instructed the artists to present their paintings to the IDF for permission before exhibiting, stamping each painting as either good or bad. Anything that fell into the latter category would be seized. “The officer raised his voice and said, ‘Even if you do a watermelon, it will be confiscated,’” Mansour said. “So the idea of the watermelon came actually from the officer, not from us.” ” ( Anania, 2021).  Now, in Palestine, raising a freshly sliced watermelon became a method of protest that shows national pride.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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          yaffa 1979 by  Sliman Mansour                                                                       quiet morning 2009 by Sliman Mansour

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Arabs, countries and culture have strong connections to fruit, whether dates, pomegranates or olive trees. They are mentioned in holy books, in writings, poetry and all art mediums really. We have such great value for them, it's rare to see a house in the middle east without some kind of fruit tree growing in their yard. My choice of what fruit I pick to combine and use is based on my background. It has everything to do with my culture, memory and even my likability of it. When I first started with the fruit salad concept, I would pick a fruit that would represent Palestine, another of Saudi and the last of Bahrain. Now I pick one of Palestine, another Saudi and the last one that stands for the UK as I now moved here, and all these experiences will help shape me, grow to who I'll become. But with that said, identifying what exact type of fruit was used isn't important, as ultimately the goal of the piece is that it shouldn't matter. What matters is the now; how the fruit is shaped and presented right here and now.
 

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Veronica Ryan, who is a local British artist, created a three piece marble and bronze sculpture for a permanent public installation, located at Ridley Market in London, that consisted of Custard Apple, Breadfruit and Soursop. a lot of her memories from when she was a child had to do with her work today. She mentions her choice of those fruits are from going to that same Market with her mother ( Create London, 2021). I found a lot of similarities between us, she spoke about her experience at art school and how her first year was hard. She came from a different environment and couldn't relate to a lot of her classmates. She did a piece that represented her experience in that first year,  Untitled 1977 -78. It was a tilted sculpture that looked like it was falling, discussing structure, and the idea of not feeling/being very balanced (YaleBritishArt. Wallis, 2022. 10:30 min). This questioning and realizing the situation, the relation between herself and her classmates, is exactly the type of moments that I am trying to portray in my work; to portray the inner struggle, questioning, contemplating and trying to understand or deal with the current state and circumstances. Although thankfully I don't feel like I'm completely out of place here, it is still something that I constantly question, the concept of relation in any situation, even when living back home in Bahrain or Saudi, mostly because of the fact that i never had the pleasure of visiting/living in Palestine. Her work, Untitled 1977-78, made me think of how the idea of morphing the fruits is the creation of an unbalanced outcome, because it cannot be placed or identified. The idea and concept of structure is something that I have been thinking about for a while, which is the reason why I'm planning to experiment with clay. 

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Veronica Ryan 

commissioned by Hackney Council and produced and

curated by Create London, the Hackney Windrush Art

Commission is made possible with Art Fund support, with.                                                    Veronica Ryan-Untitled 1977-78

additional funding from the Henry Moore Foundation.

The accompanying public programme is supported by

the Freelands Foundation.

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Both artists, Sliman Mansour and Veronica Ryan, discuss identity in their work. Navigating with the use of organic material or subject matter, from memory, current situations and to represent culture. My work does the same, but focused on, or to show and somewhat commemorate those ungrounding, unbalanced moments of struggle that come in life, that change our inner shapes, morphing us into something new, a process that sometimes can be painful. The reason why I call them moments of realizations, is because such situations force us to try and understand where one stands in this present moment because of those constant unbalanced feelings. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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