Video Installation, 3:50 on loop on a 310x400cm canvas.

I see these portraits as semicolons, moments of attention and respite. They are the semicolons in the artist’s prolonged sentence. They are the glimpses of attention of a loving husband and father who is fully absorbed in the process of constructing the collective image of a nation.

They are the moments of the artist/warrior’s respite. I imagine each one of these portraits was painted after a defeat or a national setback which forced him to withdraw inwards, to come back to his safe house, to take a breath before rejoining the battle. They are a metaphor for a homeland that can reunite his family in one place, at one time. Perhaps I wanted a legacy of political art for him, most present in collective memory and museums, to become the invisible/absent backdrop for these few intimate portraits.

Animation: Dia Al Azzeh