Art on the Wall of Hate

Paintings by a Palestinian artist on the security fence.

I really wanted to share these because many people in the United States have this view of the Palestinians as brainwashed Islamic fundamentalists. They inhumanely attack Israeli's by blowing themselves up. Atleast that is the image you get in the media. But there is a lot more to life in Palestine then Islamic fundamentalism and suicide bombings. There is art, music, film. There is life in Palestine and I think people tend to forget that, or never realize it in the first place.

Another reason I wanted to share these photos, is to show how Palestinians are fighting nonviolently against the occupation. These paintings are commentary on life in Palestine under occupation. Take the painting of the girl grasping a bundle of balloons that are raising her off her feet. I interpret this image to be a symbol of imagination. The wall is suffocating for Palestinian society, but with a little imagination symbolized in this image of girl floating away with her balloons (an image I know I have once imagined myself) a door is open, providing a breath of fresh air for the men, the women, the children who walk by it every day.

Painting is a form of nonviolent resistance. It is active, not passive. And it is difficult. Any artist will tell you that. It is easier to succumb to violence, but to have the courage to stand up against oppression with a paint brush, not knowing if you will fail or succeed is more frightening to me then jumping out of a plane from 18,000 feet in the air.

The Emerald Queen

I revisted Ultraviolenceland, a series of paintings by Camille Rose Garcia. All the paintings in this series intend to describe recreational violence. The castles are a symbol of empire. The vampires are armies that feed on violence and destruction. The dark forest symbolizes subconscious fear while inside the city symbolizes unhappiness with the "pristine but ultraviolent world."

This particular painting screamed to me the ills of the empire. The depressed princess toys with her gems in oblivion of fear. No castle can hide violence. Regardless of beauty and peace in the empire, when built by blood, fear and violence will lurk in the subconscious. The dutiful worker extracting dead souls from life reminds me of a soldiers work: the violence an army must enact to maintain an empire.To me, it also raises the question of the rationalization of violence. Violence is rationalized to protect an empire. Those who live outside the empire live outside of the care of the empire, and therefore suffer. However, all, inside and outside the empire suffer from violence. The categorization of within and outside an empire becomes arbitrary. This painting leaves me questioning. What is a nation? What is a state? Why do we substantiate violence for this arbitrary, imaginary concept?

Non-violent struggle takes many shapes and many forms. Vampires in forests, ghouls sucking souls, and princesses in castles slitting wrists and downing pills are all images of violence that Garcia painted with the intention to evoke thoughts on the use and need of violence in this world. Most people don’t look at a painting and see non-violent struggle, but it is there. Took view more of Garcia's work visit her online gallery.

Trapped in a Prison

Put me in a cage and I will resist.