Literature

Hiding, 2018 Charcoal on paper, 140 × 135 cm

In Hiding, the Palestinian artist Samah Shihadi magnifies the pads of the sabra cactus to monumental scale, cropping them so closely that the image verges on abstraction. Broad planes of pale and dark tone meet along scalloped edges, the fine spines appearing as delicate marks on a vast surface. The title suggests concealment and refuge, recalling the cactus hedges that once enclosed Palestinian villages and the themes of visibility and concealment that run through Shihadi’s self-portraits. At this scale her hyperrealist charcoal shifts towards the sublime, rendering a familiar emblem of the Nakba and of survival strange and immersive.