Growing up between Birzeit, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem, Sliman Mansour went on to study fine arts at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. In 1973, he co-founded the League of Palestinian Artists, which he led for several years. In 1994, he co-established the al-Wasiti Art Center in Jerusalem, demonstrating his practical commitment to younger artists, as well as to art as a social and political undertaking. Olive groves and orange trees have emerged as recurrent references in his work—motifs through which he explores a profound sense of loss and a commemoration of the Palestinian struggle. Within his oeuvre, oranges and olives are considered allegories of Palestinian land. Land Day (2020), for instance, shows a woman sitting on a carpet, her head bowed and eyes closed, cuddling an olive grove between her hands as if to protect it. This visual theme continues in Olive Picking (2021) which shows a different woman, brightly clothed in traditional Palestinian embroidered garments during an olive harvest. An earlier work by Mansour in the exhibition, titled Camel of Hardship (1974), shows an elderly man carrying Jerusalem on his back, a possible allegory of the burden of Palestinian existence under occupation, while in The Village Awakens (1987), one encounters a crowd of people engaged in various daily activities including building, fishing, and the harvesting of oranges and wheat, a far cry from the realities on the ground in Gaza and most of the occupied territories in the West Bank today. In an abstract and realist, and sometimes surrealist style, Mansour depicts vivid symbols of Palestinian culture via rich colours, clear composition, and textures expressing highly relevant and currently pressing continuities in resistance, resilience, and hope.

WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION: From left to right: Camel of Hardship (1973), print on paper, 58 × 37.5 cm; Land Day (2020), print on paper, 54 × 39.5 cm; Untitled (1984), print on paper, 58 × 50 cm; The Village Awakens (1987), print on paper, 53 × 41.5 cm; Olive Picking (2021), print on paper, 67 × 58 cm; Salma (1980), print on paper, 52 × 42 cm; Memory of Places (2009), print on paper, 55 × 44 cm. Courtesy of Zawyeh Gallery