As a Palestinian American artist, my work excavates personal and collective narratives of loss, exile, and resistance, even as it celebrates the beauty and joy around us. I am drawn to the imprint of human history on the natural landscape. Growing up in the Middle East, the colors, quality of light, and traces of millennia of human presence continue to resonate through my work, even as the landscapes of the Northeastern U.S. where I have lived my adult life influence what I paint. Buildings and stone walls in the process of decay; light coming through dark and dark through light; the quality of color at different times of day are all sources for my work.

The process of making abstract art begins, for me, with acts of attention. I love walking and as I walk I observe the colors, light, and structures of the environment. These contemporary sources of inspiration meld with an embodied history of other places and other times that live on within me. Each of my pieces begins with color and gesture. I create layers of light and color with oil pastels or paints, and then pull away to develop a depth and complexity in the work. Through this process, line and shape emerge forming relationships of rich color and composition. Creating relationships between oppositions—unpredictability and order; light and dark; past and present, my works evoke the sheer beauty of this perfectly imperfect world.

Daughter of a Palestinian father and an American mother, I grew up in Iran and Lebanon, and spent many summers with my family in Palestine. I came to the U.S. to attend Swarthmore College, and after graduation moved to Philadelphia where I met my life partner, raised my children, completed graduate study, and still live. Now a Professor at Barnard College, Columbia University, I divide my time between Philadelphia, New York, and Vermont, teaching, researching and writing, and making visual art.