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October Gallery will present canvases and
sculptures by Laila Shawa, an artist known for her
uncompromising documentation of events in today’s Middle East.
Laila Shawa was just eight years-old when on May 14th 1948, the
State of Israel was declared to exist in her homeland of
Palestine.
The contradictions of a logic spiralling beyond all rational
control are a signature device in Shawa’s account of the current
chaos in Palestine. This series of works is developed from a BBC
documentary, ‘The Cult of the Suicide Bomber’ (2007) which aired
CCTV footage of a young Palestinian woman caught crossing the
border wearing a suicide belt. The titles of the sculptures,
Disposable Bodies and bright mixed-media canvases,
Trapped and Boom, attest to the inherent difficulties
of art when tackling certain subjects head-on. The canvases
juxtapose ironic references to Persian miniatures with a nod to
Roy Lichtenstein’s Whaam, whilst depicting the deadly
Predator drones endlessly circling in the skies above Gaza.
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