Basel El Maxi says he is surprised to find out he lives at the end of every day. With over 64,000 Palestinians living in Gaza, where Israeli attacks have been killed, and as tallies stand still, his surprise comes back in the light every morning.
“The war started, life stopped. There’s no work or art. We run from one place to another, looking for salvation from bombing and murder, trying to chase us. We quickly walked for water and food, and running was always a master,” he says.
“In these moments we lose some of everything beyond humanity, dignity and durability.”
El Maxi Some of Gaza’s roughly 2 million Palestinians live under forced evacuation and Israeli bombing, which reduced the majority of their territory to tile rubs.
His work is one of four Gazan artists who have appeared at the exhibition on fire at at wire. Darat Al Fun Amman, Jordan. Despite living under daily fire, they create and use all the materials they can find.
With a pencil with his black charcoal, El Maxi We have created an unforgettable image of a catastrophic war. His work depicts a man stripped and blindfolded, a woman in a sad embrace, and a child with no limbs in the sea of a tent.
“My art is a message to the world that I, as Palestinians, are under occupation and deserves to live with dignity and freedom like the rest of the world,” he says.
Before October 2023, Elmakushi worked as an art teacher in Beitrahea, northern Gaza. He is on display internationally and has attended residences in India, Algeria and the US.
Currently expelled from Khan Younis, Rafah, Deir Al-Balah, Nuseirat and Az-Zawaida, El Maqousi says he maintains his humanity through more than 100 workshops he organizes with children, mothers and people with disabilities.
He gathered the children near the tent, gave them materials to create while their mother was watching, and began smiling at the short resting figure. One of the most difficult workshops was with her mother, he says. He cried with them.
“This is what I do during war. I know well that it’s not that much, but I also know that for a while my children have been given the opportunity to forget about war, fear, hunger. I forget about time, suffering, nightmares, day and nightmares,” he says.
“I have nothing else to do. I love what I do.”
According to Khaled Al-Bashir, director of arts and culture, the fire exhibit is the latest example of Darat Al Funun’s dedicated programming in solidarity with Gaza.
“In this context, this particular display is particularly important in this context, given the circumstances these artists continue to create, and the prominent resolve to do so within Gaza and under evacuation. Needless to say, it also manifests itself from the absolute necessity centered around Gazan’s voice at this time, and the urgency of doing so,” says Basil.
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All four artists in the exhibition were students in the summer program run by Darat Al Fann under Syrian artist Marwan Kassab Baci, and continued to help establish two of Gaza’s main artistic spaces and collectives. Sohail Salem and Raed Issa were co-founders Eltika Groupand El Makosui and Majed Shara helped to make Shababik for contemporary art. Both were destroyed in the war.
On display are blue, black and red inks, Salem’s pen drawings in many Unrwa notebooks. He describes his work as a “message to the world” and a “cry for help.”
“It was my mission to free up the visual store of misery that I had saved in my mind, and this was the most cruel thing when I was forced to pass the martyr’s body during evacuation.
In January 2023, Salem was a university art teacher. He was arrested by the Israeli Defense Forces at Alrimal’s family home, separated from his family and was handcuffed and blindfolded before being questioned. He recalls how the Hebrew alphabet letter was written on his forehead, leaving the man around him, guessing whether this means that he will be killed first. He was later released and was able to find his family in Deial Al Bhara, where they had fled.
“The idea of the art looked ridiculous. What can I draw in such a situation? And why? My brain was damaged by the sound of the intense bombing that still resonated in my head,” says Salem. Before the war, he taught at Al-Aqsa University and exhibited his works locally and internationally.
“These little notebooks and pens were my shelter and I put them in a small bag without worry, as if I was writing my memoirs every day.”
The exhibition also includes portraits of Issa’s women and children, using only materials he can find. He is based on the packaging of the medicine, using calcade (hibiscus flower tea) and pomegranate juice along with ink.
“In recent evacuations, I was unable to take my art supplies to me,” says the text that comes with Issa’s work in Amman. “Using the available ones, I have created several places in the gastric medicine package, but the patient is suffering from stomach problems. Everything in Gaza suffers from hunger hunger.”
Shara and his family were expelled from Deial Balau by heavy artillery, leaving behind their home, his studio and 30 years of artwork. He created it using “anything he can find” – he created colorful pieces, from paper, watercolors, scrap pens, cacti that he missed from his balcony to familiar streets in Gaza.
“As the war progressed, I began to document real-life scenes of evacuation and exile that affected every part of our daily lives,” says the gallery text that accompany his work.
“These scenes remind us of the stories our elders told us about Nakba in 1948, but we feel that what we have lived up to now is far more devastating and far worse than what people endured at the time.”
