Artist Profile | Painting

Sliman Mansour

Sliman Mansour is one of the most distinguished and renowned artists in Palestine. His style embodies steadfastness in the face of a relentless military occupation. His work — which has come to symbolize the Palestinian national identity — has inspired generations of Palestinians and international artists and activists alike. Born in 1947, Mansour spent his childhood around the verdant hills and fields of Birzeit — where he was born — and later his adolescence in Bethlehem and Jerusalem. These experiences left a significant mark on his work, heightening a sense of gradual loss in Palestine, especially after the occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1967. His early experiences also presented him with the symbols and images he would later use to preserve and highlight Palestinian identity. Using symbols derived from Palestinian life, culture, history, and tradition, Mansour uniquely illustrates Palestinians’ resolve and connection with their land. His pieces epitomize art as a form of resistance. With orange trees, he represents land lost in the Nakba of 1948. With olive trees, he represents land occupied in 1967. With women wearing traditional embroidered dresses, he represents Palestinian land and the Palestinian revolution. With the landscape of Palestine and its stone terraces, he represents the mark of Palestinian farmers on the land. With images of Jerusalem and the glistening Dome of the Rock, he represents the Palestinian homeland and the dream of return. Sliman Mansour’s art deftly reflects the hopes and realities of a people living under occupation for the better part of a century. Since the early 1970s, he has translated his experiences of isolation, displacement, community, and rootedness using imagery and symbols that have contributed to the development of an iconography of the Palestinian struggle. Paintings such as “Jamal al-Mahamel” (Camel of Hardships or Camel of Burdens) — with its iconic porter whose heavy and precious load is the Jerusalem that all Palestinians yearn for — were made into posters, cards, and stickers. Such images were popularized in direct defiance of Israeli military authorities, who frequently confiscated artwork and posters and closed exhibitions and galleries. Mansour’s artistic mediums have varied throughout his long career — changing to match his experience of displacement in his homeland and the developments and transformations of the Palestinian national movement. Mansour and artists Vera Tamari, Tayseer Barakat, and Nabil Anani founded the New Visions movement in 1987. The movement was formed in response to the first intifada and called on artists to boycott Israeli art supplies and instead utilize local natural materials such as coffee, henna, and clay. Mud — the basis for human life in many cultures and religions as well as an actual piece of Palestinian land — was a tool of choice for Mansour. Using mud, he created symbols of identity that celebrated the rich and varied Palestinian culture. At the same time, Mansour captured the essence of Palestinian rootedness as well as the fragmentation in the Palestinian political landscape and geography — echoed in the cracks growing in the mud as it dries. In addition to playing a key role in developing the Palestinian national visual identity through his rich and multi-faceted oeuvre, Mansour has also greatly contributed to developing the artistic movement in Palestine. In 1973, he co-founded the League of Palestinian Artists, which he led for several years. In 1994, he co-founded al-Wasiti Art Center in Jerusalem, which was established to build a bridge between Palestinian artists and their compatriots in exile and other international artists to archive and preserve art in Palestine. Mansour is a founding Board member of the International Academy of Art, and he has taught at several Palestinian cultural and educational institutions, such as Al-Quds University. Sliman Mansour has showcased his artwork at national and international exhibitions, including the Inaugural Exhibition, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris 1987; “Occupation and Resistance,” the Other Museum, New York 1990; the Sharjah Biennial, Sharjah 1995; “Seven Palestinian Artists,” Darat al Funun, Amman 1997; “Made in Palestine,” the Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston 2003; “Art Palestine,” Meem Gallery, Dubai 2011; and “Abstraction and Calligraphy — Towards a Universal Language,’ Louvre Abu Dhabi in collaboration with Centre Pompidou, 2021. In 1998, Mansour received the Palestine Prize for the Visual Arts and the Grand Nile Prize At the Seventh Cairo Biennial. In 2019, he was awarded the UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture for highlighting Palestinian and Arab cultures internationally.