Mountain Olives 2003

Samia Halaby, born in Jerusalem in 1936, made this explosion of colour called Mountain Olives with paint, of course. It must have come into being slowly, maybe with some sudden bursts. It has these dark blues and blacks, punctuated by what looks like a party of tiny flowers. I imagine Halaby, brush in hand, thinking about the weight of the paint, how it settles on the canvas, how one colour bumps into another, and starts a conversation. It's a material thing, painting. Halaby is pushing and pulling, adding and subtracting, until a feeling takes shape. Look at that little stroke of crimson, how it sings against the dark ground. You know, painting is an ongoing conversation between artists across time. One painter sees something in another's work, picks it up, and runs with it. Halaby is part of that lineage, taking the baton and making something entirely her own. And it is never about fixed meanings, it's more like an invitation to feel, to wander, to imagine.