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The Palestinian artist worked on an individual initiative over a period of 6 months, on a daily basis, among the rubble of the tower to complete his paintings before displaying them in the “Dreamers Among the Rubble” exhibition.
On the walls of the Italian complex tower, which was destroyed during the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip in 2014, the Palestinian artist Ali Al-Jabali painted 10 paintings about the dreams of the youth and children of Palestine.
Al-Jabali worked on his own initiative for 6 months, on a daily basis, among the rubble of the tower to complete his paintings before displaying them to the public in an exhibition called “Dreamers Among the Rubble.”
In 2014, a series of Israeli raids destroyed the 15-storey building, including 13 residential floors, which consisted of 52 apartments and two floors of a commercial center, but only the rubble of the first 3 floors remained of the tower.
Breathe life into the walls of death
Al-Jabali, 26 years old, told Al-Ain News that his drawings are 4 huge murals, each with an area of approximately 20 metres, and other oil paintings of different sizes, hanging on what remains of the walls of the Italian complex’s tower.
Through simple watercolors and inexpensive equipment, Ali created his paintings that transformed the deaf facades and rubble into a living painting through colors and drawings to convey a message to the world that the youth of Palestine have energies, dreams and a love for life despite death and destruction.
He added: "The paintings carry the message of the youth in Gaza dreaming of freedom and hope, of salvation from aggression, siege and poverty, and for the world to turn to them."
Al-Jabali, a graduate of engineering and decoration, explained that his journey with art began 11 years ago and he worked on developing his love for graffiti art in order to promote “street art,” leading to this exhibition, which emulates his suffering and dreams as a young graduate looking for a real job opportunity and suffering from the siege and the difficulty of traveling as he is. The condition of the majority of Gaza’s youth.
Dreams of hope
On the only remaining wall on the second floor of the building’s exterior facade, he painted his first graffiti-style painting of a dreaming child looking at the sky, and his features reflect the state of sadness that envelopes the cases of Palestinian children and youth after three wars, a series of waves of escalation, and a siege extending for more than 13 years.
Between the cracked walls and falling rubble, Al-Jabali determined a safe path for himself inside the building to paint the rest of his paintings, and this is the path that visitors to the exhibition took after it opened last Wednesday.
He pointed to one of the paintings that occupied an entire wall, which depicts a child with scattered hair and features that reflect fear, explaining that it is an example of Palestinian children who suffer from fear of the repeated bombing of their homes.
On two other walls, he painted two dreaming girls whose features bore love, dreams, and determination to survive and hope. He said: “This is our life. We will build a new hope on the rubble of our dreams.”
Pointing to another oil painting that shows a girl with frightened and astonished looks holding a toy that is a plastic girl in bad condition, he said that it imitates the stories of Palestinian children who emerge from under the rubble of their destroyed homes and search for their toys.
He added: "This basic painting bears the name 'Dreamers Among the Rubble', which was given to the entire exhibition. It is a mixture of contradictions: fear, dreaming, and insistence on play and life."
In front of an oil painting bearing two overlapping drawings, one of which is of a person who appears to be sleeping dreamily, and another image bearing his personal features, he said, looking proud of what he had accomplished over the course of months and winning the admiration of the audience: “This expresses my condition. There you find dream, hope, and distraction. All of that is a mixture that I face as "All the young people in Gaza."
Missed opportunity
The young artist bitterly recounts how, in 2015, he succeeded in participating in an art exhibition in France, and he actually prepared a number of paintings, but he was unable to travel at that time due to the siege on Gaza, adding that he sent his paintings to the exhibition, but they were lost on the way, and this was a double loss for him.
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