M PORTRAITS
2016–17. Set of mixed media, acrylic, water-base color, chalk, crayon, collage on canvas (152 x 117 cm each)

A series of paintings on the theme of the patriarch and the family tribal leader, based on portraits of my paternal grandfather and some drawings I made as a child. The glorified Arab paternalism and machismo is caught up in an unending struggle with internal and external forces. A past, which still dominates the present, that cannot fully reconcile itself between the glories of a self-imposed tradition and it’s unending dreams, a war against the external force of colonialism and a belief system that at the same time demands obedience and submission at all costs.