Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Palestinian visual artist Wael Rabie relies on experience to develop his artistic abilities. He adheres to the realist school, because art in societies that suffer from injustice, persecution, and occupation is an urgent necessity and not a luxury.
He was born in 1970 in Al-Amari Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank. Its roots go back to the town of Lifta, one of the villages in Jerusalem, which the occupation removed from the land in the year of the Nakba.
“No” Ports met the artist Wael Rabie, speaking about his experience in plastic art and its fateful connection to the issue of homeland and land in occupied Palestine. So, to the dialogue:
Jerusalem “The Enchanted City”
Let us begin our conversation with you from your painting “The Enchanted City,” for which you were nominated for the Best Arab Visual Artist in the World Competition for the year 2019. Tell us about that painting and the merits of the competition?
First of all, I can only extend my warmest welcome to you, thanking you for this good opportunity through which I was allowed to be a guest of your esteemed newspaper and your honorable followers, wishing you success.
With regard to your question about the “Enchanted City” painting, I was inspired by this work of art from “Swan Lake”, which is one of the masterpieces of the world musical heritage of the Russian musician Tchaikovsky, which was shown in 1887. Through this work of art, I sought to draw attention to “the occupied city of Jerusalem.” And the grim torments that befell her as a result of the occupation. Likewise, I wanted to send a message to the Western world in particular, seeking as much as I could to break through that stereotype they have (that the Arab person in general is a person with “limited culture and understanding”), so the girl was the “reader.” The wearer of the Palestinian keffiyeh, with its clear symbolism, holds this novel in her hands and looks at the horizon towards Jerusalem, in an imaginary scene that simulates the final scene in the novel with the disappearance of magic, the end of darkness, and the return of Princess “Jerusalem” to its former splendor and beauty.
As for the subject of the competition, I had received a notification from the organizer that my board had been selected in the short list (the top five) in the competition, but unfortunately, the spread of this global epidemic and the subsequent closures and suspension of airport traffic in many countries The world prevented the completion of this competition for that year.
Art and creativity as a necessity
To what extent was Palestinian visual art able to reflect the issues of its people and the occupied country?
They say, “The artist is the son of his environment,” and I strongly believe in this saying. It is true that art is a universal language from which most societies, including velvet societies, do not exist. However, I see that societies that are subjected to injustice in all its forms and forms manifest the need for arts on a more important and broader scale, based on the principle of the importance of the presence of art and creativity as a necessity to reflect the suffering of these societies. And highlighting its just causes in all forums, seeking to devote all means that lead to achieving its just humanitarian goals.
In the same context, I see that plastic art is one of the most important tributaries of “history in all its civilized and human aspects.” We find that Palestinian plastic art has played an important role in this field, as there are many artworks that chronicle the successive eras of Palestine and its people and what Those eras were accompanied by national, cultural and heritage manifestations. Also, as artists, we have been and still find in committed art a window for us through which we look at our difficult and thorny reality, so that our just cause remains burning within us and does not melt into the amusements of life.
Resilience despite the suffering and wounds
The occupation and the state of alienation experienced by the Palestinian person within his dismembered homeland, which is inside cement walls, barriers and barbed wire.. How does it reflect on the artist’s psyche?
The Palestinian artist is like the rest of his people in all places of his presence, as he suffers from what they suffer from that great amount of (barriers, taboos, and obstacles...), which are reflected in his psyche in two conflicting, conflicting directions: the first, he carries with it suffering and oppression as a result of limiting his freedom and not The completion of his desired citizenship and his psychological, social and material stability like all other liberated peoples of the world, and the second, he bears the challenge and the spirit of determination, steadfastness and steadfastness as a human being who took it upon himself to carry a sublime national message aimed at national liberation and emancipation from the clutches of the occupation, but we, thank God, still find that the Palestinian artist prevails in him The second trend is that it transcends all the suffering and wounds.
The antidote to patriotism
Were all these alienating practices by the occupation able to affect the identity of the Palestinian person and his belonging to his land and homeland?
The occupation has striven to negatively affect the Palestinian identity in many areas of life (cultural, heritage, historical, religious, etc.), as well as on all local and international forums, but we find that the steadfast and stationary Palestinian person has always been keen to bring in his mind and heart an antidote Patriotism and steadfastness to eliminate all kinds of toxins that the occupation exhales on its way to liberation and emancipation.
“Handala” is a constant presence
If the personality of Handala was a compass for the great artist Naji Al-Ali, what does it represent for the rest of the Palestinian artists?
The character of "Handala", which was presented by our late artist Naji Al-Ali, carried and still carries a high symbolism for that Palestinian child who is dispersed and targeted from sides that may exceed the four sides sometimes, and I believe that this symbolism is not absent from the mind of any Palestinian plastic artist being in direct contact with it. The Palestinian artist and child both share the pains of her pains, which are interspersed with a few smiles of her hopes.
What is the main title that the artist Wael Rabie’s works can represent?
Quite simply and directly: “the homeland” with all that is in it.
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Achievements and Awards
- Years in active
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