Abbas Mehran

I like those paintings which their ideas come to me when I am not thinking about art or planning to paint something to make a statement. One of these paintings, and my favourite, is called “Palestinian Graffiti Takes a Flight”, and I would like to share it with you.

It is my habit to sing, while I am working. Sometimes, my songs are made of words that have no reference to any particular song; rather, they are unconsciously and haphazardly improvised.

In 2008, while I was painting and singing, I caught myself mumbling the phrase “donkey on a wall”. Puzzled with this out of blue intonation and its possible meanings or psychological implications, I visualized and seized the image.

Few months later, I decided to make a painting out of it. The task of retrieving an image of a wall from my subconscious mind was not so difficult. My fingers on the computer keyboard easily traced the Internet to bring it to may face. There it was: the Separation Wall with myriads of graffiti on it, from which, I chose the image of a little girl with balloons, painted in black by the British graffiti artist Banksy. The rest of the contents came to being in the painting process without much of intellectual and analytical reasoning.

It is up to the viewer to make his/her own story and interpretation. This painting has been exhibited at Celeste Prize in Berlin, and the Animamix Biennial - Visual Attract and Attack, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan.