Asim Abu Shakra

This work is oil on paper laid down on Masonite. Overall in very good condition. There are artist's pinholes on all 4 corners. There is one 0.5 cm. tear from the center of the right edge. There are two dents and a very small tear to the right of the ladder, now stabilized due to the fact that the work is laid down on Masonite. The paper is slightly wavy in the bottom corners.
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While discussing this important theme from the artist's oeuvre, Tali Tamir notes: "The recurrent motif in Abu Shakra's paintings - the potted cactus - is repeatedly charged by his sense of not belonging, the perpetual feeling of foreigness in Tel Aviv, in an entirely Jewish society, the feeling that something is not in its natural setting. The cactus has been transplanted from the wild, tangled hedges that appeared in his early landscapes to a small flowerpot on a windowsill in Tel Aviv. The downsizing of the cactus hedge to a small decorative plant and the confinement of the earth surrounding its roots to the measured amount needed for a house plant convey not only a sense of foreignness and discomfort, but also a protest against the taming of nature, against a state of oppression and indignity." (Tali Tamir, "The Shadow of Foreignness: On the Paintings of Asim Abu-Shakra", Asim Abu Shakra, exhibition catalogue, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 1994, p. 87).