Safaa Odah

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  • Safaa Odah

    Safaa Odah20 Artworks

    In Gaza, houses have only four hours of electricity every night, and Safaa Odah tries her best to make the most of this time to create her works. She sits down at her desk to describe the brutalities she's witnessed in the beleaguered strip she calls home. This press cartoon artist and a citizen of Gaza has spent the last nine years of her artistic life making impressive paintings of the occupied Palestine. With Hamas coming to power in 2007, both Israel and Egypt decided to blockade Gaza. After completing other duties of life, she starts painting, the first etude she paints, suddenly the darkness covers her work, her home and her land. She says: "This is how an idea stays in my mind for days and eventually becomes something new." When she finally succeeds in putting her idea on paper, the combination of depicted innocence and the allure of the subject will be an amazing combination. Her works focus on the real events of these days in Gaza, she says that she grew up much earlier than her age because of the terrible events she witnesses every day. She says: "Leaving the issue of recognition, things happen here that kill motivation and passion in every person, but I have never hesitated in my work." After nine years of artistic activity, Safa is known to some extent inside and outside the borders of her country. In his latest work, he depicts Death in a black robe, carrying children in a box, and on the other side we see the smoke from the burning of tires belonging to the Palestinian "Great Return" march. On that day, 60 Palestinians were killed, 8 of whom were children. In another work published last month, a Palestinian mother is depicted holding the soul of her child in her arms and falling asleep with a smile on her face. Another work shows a paper rocket on top of the racist wall that Israel has built and indicates the difficulties that the Palestinian people face in communicating with their compatriots on the other side of the West Bank. Odah says, the theme of the work is important to me and I often deal with human issues. Whenever she talks about Palestine, she inevitably gets involved in politics. In one work, she shows a number of bullets lined up and a hand showing a picture of a child for them to shoot. "I strive for humanity, for life." Her work is not limited to Palestine, and she also challenges baseless prejudices about Muslim women. "I am confident about this kind of works and I try to make my works to make people think". Despite all the difficulties, she continues to work without interruption. She remembers the words of her psychology professor who said: "All people have talents, the important thing is to be able to discover them." "Drawing cartoons is my talent and ability, even though it's hard to follow my dreams in Gaza, I do it and discover myself in each of my works".

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