Laila Shawa

Laila Shawa (b. 1940, Gaza), was born into one of Palestine’s old established families during the days of the British Mandate. She currently lives and works in London. Shawa began formal art training at the Leonardo da Vinci Art Institute in Cairo, Egypt, in 1957, before transferring to the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, Italy. Working under Renato Gattuso she received a BA (Hons) in Fine Arts and a further Diploma in Plastic and Decorative Arts from the Academia St Giacomo. Between 1960 and 1963, she spent time broadening her practice at Oskar Kokoschka’s pioneering School of Seeing, in Salzburg, Austria. Shawa returned to Gaza, in 1964, to work in refugee camps, supervising arts and crafts education for the UNRWA and instructing art teachers under a UNESCO programme. Around this time, she began working informally at the studio of the UN war photographer, Hrant Nakasian. In 1967, Shawa moved to Beirut to work as a full-time artist, before returning to Gaza, on the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War, in 1975.

Laila’s father, Rashad al-Shawa, as the Mayor of Gaza during this difficult period, commissioned a new Cultural Center in Rimal, Gaza, with the intention of developing links between the beleaguered Palestinian population and the wider international community. Working closely with the UK-based architect Saad Mohaffel, Shawa managed the logistics of implementing this massive undertaking, for which she also designed the stained-glass windows. Estimated to take five years to accomplish, this complex construction project took over a decade to complete because of restrictions imposed on movements of essential building materials. The Rashad Shawa Cultural Center was finally completed in 1988. From 1987 onwards, the intensifying protests and violent unrest of the First Intifada, convinced Shawa to settle in London, where she has based her activities ever since. Although exclusively occupied in overcoming the administrative problems of the Cultural Center project, photographs she took at the time would later become the core of her artistic output and help define her developing path. Recording the polemical discourses scrawled daily across the walls of her native city and documenting the unrest of those volatile years, The Walls of Gaza series came to form the bedrock on which her reputation as an international artist still rests today.

Shawa’s mining of these historical documentary photographs in her paintings, sculptures, and installations has been hugely influential on contemporary Palestinian art. Exhibitions such as Crucifixion 2000: In the Name of God, at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 2000, and installations such as the sculpture Clash, which conveyed her immediate and passionate reactions to the events of 9/11, have proven both stimulating and provocative. In her 2008 series Sarab, Shawa returned to painting, executing a cycle of twenty-nine works that assert the role of Islamic geometric patterning as a primary visual identifier of Islamic popular culture. In January 2009, she embarked on two new series, The Walls of Gaza III and a cycle of works entitled Cast Lead. The latter focuses on the many children killed during ‘Operation Cast Lead’ —the Israeli name for its three-week-long airstrike operations deep into Gaza, that indiscriminately targeted the civilian population. Shawa’s uncompromising response was a daring series called Cast Lead, (2011–12), which explored such controversial subjects as the atrocity of aerial strikes on civilian centres and female Palestinian suicide bombers. Many of these works were exhibited in The Other Side of Paradise, at October Gallery in 2012.

Artist’s Statement

“Growing up in the Middle East, where many diverse cultures live in close proximity to each other, I quickly became fluent in several different languages. Speaking other languages helps one understand how complex problems give rise to multiple explanations that can often be mutually exclusive. Using the artist’s privileged vantage point, I try to consider all sides of any question. My multi-layered approach is designed to highlight and explore the dichotomies, ironies, and hypocrisies to which many seem less well attuned.”

Publications

Venetia Porter, Charles Tripp and Natasha Morris, Reflections: contemporary art of the Middle East and North Africa, British Museum Press, London, 2021.

Lynn Gaspard, Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic: Words and Pictures on How to Stop Worrying and Love the Alien Next Door, Saqi Books, London, 2017.

Patrizia Pulga, Le donne fotografe dalla nascita della fotographia ad oggi. Uno sguardo di genere, Pendragon, Bologna, 2017.

Nada Shabout, Modern Arab Art, Formation of Arab Aesthetics, University Press, Florida, 2015.

Charles Tripp, The Power and the People: Paths of Resistance in the Middle East, Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Bashir Makhoul and Gordon Hon, The Origins of Palestinian Art (Value : Art : Politics), Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, 2013.

Saeb Eigner, Art of the Middle East: Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World and Iran, Foreword by Zaha Hadid, Merrell Publishers Limited, London, 2010.

Nat Muller, Contemporary Art in the Middle East, Black Dog Publishing, London, 2009.

Hossein Amirsadeghi (ed.), New Vision: Arab Contemporary Art in the 21st Century, Thames and Hudson, London, 2009.

Gannit Ankori, Palestinian Art, Reaktion Books, London, 2005.

Phillip Mattar, Thomson Gale, The Encyclopedia of the modern Middle East & North Africa, Macmillan Reference USA, Detroit, MI, 2004.

Valentijn Bijvanck, Conventions in contemporary art: lectures and debates, Witte de With 2001, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, 2002.

Naomi S. Nye (ed.), The Space Between Our Footsteps, Painting and Poetry, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1998.

Wijdan Ali, Modern Islamic Art: Development and Continuity, University Press Florida, Gainesville, 1997.

The Dictionary of Art, Macmillan Press, London, 1996.

Ismail Shammout, Art in Palestine, Al Qabbas Press, Kuwait, 1989.

Wijdan Ali, Contemporary Art from the Islamic World, Scorpion Books, London, 1988.

Helen Khal, The Woman Artist in Lebanon, Institute for Women Studies in the Arab World, Beirut, 1987.

Afif Bahnasi, Pioneers of Modern Art in Arab Countries, Dar Al-Raed Al Arabi, Beirut, 1985.

Exhibition catalogues

Intimate Terrains: Representations of a Disappearing Landscape, The Palestinian Museum, Birzeit, 2019.

Between Desert and Sea, Pera Museum, Pera Museum Publications, Istanbul, 2013.

Judith K. Brodsky and Ferris Olin, Women of the Fertile Crescent: Gender Art and Society,

The Rutgers University Institute of Women and Art, New Jersey, 2012.

AKA Peace, Peace One Day and Phillips de Pury & Company, 2012.

Laila Shawa: The Other Side of Paradise, October Gallery, London, 2012.

Nada Shabout and Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Sajjil: A Century of Modern Art, Mathaf, The Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, 2010.

Creative Palestinian Art, Competition I Publication I Exhibition, The Art Sawa Awards, Art Sawa, Dubai, 2010.

Arabopop, Articulate Baboon Gallery, Cairo, 2010.

Venetia Porter (ed.), Isabelle Caussé and Aimée Froom, Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East Dubai 2008, Foreword by Saeb Eigner, Dubai Holding LLC, Dubai, 2008.

Christa Paula (text), Sarab, DIFC, Dubai, 2008.

Gabriele Magnani and Pittelli Rossana, Mediterraneo: A Sea that Unites, The Italian Cultural Institute, London, 2008.

Venetia Porter (ed.) and Isabelle Caussé, Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East, Foreword by Saed Eigner, The British Museum Press, London, 2006.

Wijdan Ali, Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts Collection Catalogue, Amman, 2005.

Religion, Art and War, UNICEF/ Maison des arts, 2003.

From the Ocean to the Gulf and Beyond: Modern Arab Art, The Royal Society of Fine Arts, Amman, 2002.

Wijdan Ali (text), Between Legend and Reality: Modern Art from the Islamic World, Reykjavik Art Museum, Reykjavik, 2002.

Twelve Arab Artists, Exhibition Catalogue, Wereld Museum, Rotterdam, 2001.

Fran Lloyd (ed.), Contemporary Arab Women’s Art: Dialogues of the Present, Women’s Art Library, London, 1999.

Mediterranea: Art Life, Brussels, 1998.

Tina Sherwell, Artistes Palestiniens Contemporains, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, 1997.

The Right to Write, Agnes Scott College, Atlanta, 1996.

The Right to Hope, Global Problems, Global Visions, Earthscan Publications Ltd, London, 1996.

Shawa and Wijdan, October Gallery, Amica Press, 1994.

Salwa Mikdadi Nashashibi, Etel Adnan, and Laura Nader, Forces of Change: Artists in the Arab World, International Council for Women in the Arts, National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington, 1994.

Malaysian experience, Malaysian Images, The National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 1990.

Selected Public Collections

Bank of Palestine Museum, Ramallah Branch, Palestine

DIFC, Dubai, UAE

MATHAF: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar

Spazio Brazzà, Moruzzo, Italy

The Arab Bank Limited, Amman, Jordan

The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK

The Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE

The Benevolent Society, Gaza, Palestine

The British Museum, London, UK

The Burrell Collection, Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, Scotland

The Khaled Shoman Foundation, Amman, Jordan

The Kuwait Fund, Kuwait City, Kuwait

The Museum of Modern Art, Glasgow, Scotland

The NABU Art Museum, Lebanon

The Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman, Jordan

The National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., USA

The Palestinian Union of Artists, Beirut, Lebanon

The Rashad Shawa Cultural Center, Gaza, Palestine

The TIMOTCA, Las Vegas, USA

The Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

The World of Islam Festival Trust, London, UK

IWG delegation visits the Contemporary Art Platform, Times Kuwait, 23 Apr 2022

12 Palestinian Women Worth Talking About This Women’s Day, Yasmeen Mjalli, BuildPalestine, 22 Apr 2020

Laila Shawa – a prolific and revolutionary artist from Palestine, Nata Andreev, HerArt Podcast, 8 Apr 2020 

Museum devoted to Palestinian Art to celebrate International Women’s Day with exhibition, Gabriella Angeleti, The Arts Newspaper, 25 Feb 2020

September Note: Arab About London Events Highlights | Laila Shawa Is Nahla Ink Artist of the Month, Nahla Al-Ageli, Nahla Ink Journal, Sep 2019

The life and work of Palestinian Islamo-pop artist, Laila Shawa, MEMO Middle East Monitor: Creating New Perspectives, 4 May 2019

Women and the Veil: the Art of Laila Shawa, Amira Nagy, Women in Islam, 7 Nov 2018

In the Limelight, Artist of the Month: Laila Shawa, Dr. Christa Paula, This week in Palestine, May 2016

In Conversation with Laila Shawa, Selections: Arts/Style/Culture from the Arab World and Beyond, Autumn 2014

The Political is Personal, an Interview with Palestinian Artist Laila Shawa, Muslima: Muslim Women’s Art & Voices, 2014

The Middle East in London: Palestine, SOAS, Feb/Mar 2014

Laila Shawa, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 10 Oct 2012

Artists decorate AK47 guns to highlight cease fire campaign, ITV, 26 Sep 2012

Art of Darkness, Paul Croughton, The Sunday Times, Peace One Day, 9 Sep 2012

From the Middle East, a Rarely Heard Chorus, Tammy La Gorce, The New York Times, 31 Aug 2012

Laila Shawa, Frieze Magazine, 6 Mar 2012

Mideast, Julliet Highet, Saudi Aramco World, May/Jun 2011

When She Dreams of Gaza, Gerard Houghton, CANVAS Magazine – Art and Culture from the Middle East and the Arab World, Sep 2010, Vol. 6, Issue 5

Opinion: Laila Shawa, CANVAS Daily, 19 Mar 2010

Beauty, War, Magic: The Art of Laila Shawa, Dr. Christa Paula, Birzeit University, 2008 and theBite Magazine, 2006

The British Museum’s Mission: Cultural Ambassador to the World, Alan Riding, The New York Times, 1 Jul 2006

The World in Contemporary Islamic Art, BBC News I World I Middle East, 17 May 2006

Laila Shawa: still shaking people up, Lawrence Joffe talks to the Palestine-born artist whose work forms part of the British Museum collection, The Middle East, Feb 2002

One of the exhibits: a cross with bombs, Oxford Mail, 6 Apr 2000

“I am motivated by anger! But I hide my anger behind colour and irony because I need people to understand the reality and absurdity of the human condition.”

“Life cannot be defined in binary terms, it’s nuanced, messy and contradictory – as are we ourselves.”

“In my opinion, the freedom to choose your path in life is an essential human right.”

“The Palestinian tragedy – truly a stain on humanity – remains a permanent cause of heartbreak. Can art influence minds? Perhaps. For an artist, however, any responsibility for the artwork ceases when it leaves the studio. It takes on a life of its own and how it is perceived depends more on the makeup of the viewer than the intent of the creator.”

NOTE: Quotes from conversations and interviews with Dr. Christa Paula in the course of many years CP London May 2022.

The Walls of Gaza

Artist’s statement, 2020

A crucial task for any contemporary artist is to record the signs of the times and communicate those realities to their audience. Walls of Gaza is an open-ended set of works that I first began in the early 90s during the first Palestinian uprising (1987- 1992). Known as “the stones Intifada” because it began with Palestinian youths throwing stones at Israeli tanks, the IDF’s disproportionate response resulted in many being killed. Now encompassing several later series, Walls of Gaza remains unfinished, largely because the asymmetric confrontations between Israeli military forces and Palestinian resistance in the Gaza strip continue into the present. Little has changed over the intervening three decades, while much has deteriorated further.

The raw dialogues inscribed on the walls of Gaza developed spontaneously as a necessary means of communication. They should not be confused with urban graffiti found elsewhere. Under a media blackout imposed on normal communication – newspapers, tv and radio controlled by Palestinians were banned – rapidly scribbled messages on walls were the sole form of self-expression left to Gazans during that ruthless occupation, so indifferently observed by “the civilised world.” These same conditions still obtain today.

I chose photography as my medium to bring a dimension of truth to the constantly shifting patterns of this free-form exchange. How else to record the ever-changing textures of the walls, with their impasto of spray paint, whitewash and tar, alternately applied by individuals with widely different opinions? I wanted to convey the urgency of the messages painted over almost as soon as they appeared, and represent the diversity of contending voices and visions. The IDF also participated: forcing locals to whitewash walls; using purple paint to censor and obscure (Letter to a Mother); and, when paints ran out, by over-spraying texts with tar (The Sponsors). Only by photography could a few of these fleeting moments be captured in time.

Spray-painting was a capital offense, and anyone caught expected to be imprisoned or shot – as many were. It was even dangerous to show interest in a painted wall, especially with camera in hand. Since most messages used black paint, I originally chose black and white film to document what I could, being most conscious of visual effects, with little time to consider the meanings. Quiet Fridays, with the markets empty of crowds, were good days to move around, warily avoiding IDF patrols. Another challenge was getting the films out of the country; many were confiscated at airport checkpoints. Only when I returned to London and developed the films could I begin to understand what I’d seen, and the concept of the series gradually evolved.

To print my photographs, I used silkscreen and off-set lithography on both raw canvas and paper. To add emphasis, I incorporated coloured geometric shapes so as to suggest the parallel presence of immutable mathematical truths. As colour filters they can also

soften the impact of the image; highlight a pivotal point or render dramatically present shadows from a fading past. Later on, I began to take some colour photos.

Children, who are everywhere in Gaza, followed me around attracting unwanted attention. Sometimes, it was impossible to capture a picture quickly without including them. When the closure of schools was actively encouraged by the leaders of the Intifada, my father correctly foresaw that this would result in the creation of a large population of illiterate children, who ultimately represent the future of Palestine. This came to pass.

Following the original two series of Walls of Gaza and representing an extension of it, later works, such as Children of War, Children of Peace, are attempts to bring such problematic concerns to the attention of a wider global audience. The children of this generation know nothing of the innocence of play. Instead, they have been targeted, traumatised and abused by the brutal conditions through which they have lived and this trauma is transmitted. If that four-year-old boy refugee, “playing” with a piece of copper piping survived, he would, today, be in his early 30s, and be raising children of his own. This thought amazes and horrifies me in equal measure.

Target, 1992. Silkscreen on canvas, 100 x 150

Children of War, Children of Peace, 1996. cm. Lithograph, 80 x 92 cm.

Each time the violence flares again in Gaza, and children are again dug from the bombed- out ruins of buildings, I return to my cache of images from the past, to conjure works in the present that I hope will help break this vicious cycle in the future. As an artist I cannot not be involved, nor protect myself from the pain of being involved. Making these works doesn’t ease that pain, and nothing would please me more than to end my Walls of Gaza series now.

Laila Shawa, London, 2020