Jordanian painter explores trauma of exile in new exhibition

AMMAN — “For years now, I have been feeling a sense of disconnection with my surroundings. Amman is changing so fast and I don’t recognise anything or anyone,” Jordanian artist Wedad Al Nasser told The Jordan Times on Tuesday. 

Named after the Iraqi artist Wedad Alorfali,  Nasser grew up immersed in an atmosphere of exile and displacement. “Originally from Yemen, my parents were forced to leave their homeland of Palestine to come to Jordan,” she explained, adding “even though I am fully Jordanian myself, I often feel like an alien here.”

Nofa Creative Space on Tuesday inaugurated Nasser’s first solo exhibition “Exile”, made up of 23 paintings depicting individuals whose face are creatively hidden through the artistic technique of stenciling. 

“I feel like, nowadays, everyone is acting in the same way. The only thing that differs is people’s energy,” she said, adding, “I tried to express that in my paintings, even though these people are faceless, they represent the energy of someone I know; a close friend, or someone I met who marked me.”

A Jordanian artist and photographer, Nasser has been painting since 2008, always along the lines of exile and alienation. “Although I have never experienced displacement myself, I have heard stories about exile my whole life. My parents and my grandparents kept talking about ‘another home’,” she explained, noting “I always perceived a sense of agony, a suffering affecting them.” 

“I felt like they could never connect to where they were. In a way, they transmitted to me that feeling of disconnection,” she continued. 

While the theme of exile started as research for her art, she said it gradually became a part of her. With this exhibition, she explained “I am trying to find closure with this feeling of alienation.” 

In this solo exhibition, she worked to combine her own artistic perspective with the wider political context. “Exile” seeks to display the trauma created by the changes caused by displacement from one’s homeland. 

Each portrait is set upon a black background, which, she explained, was a way to express the depression inherent to exile. 

“I was one of the first artists to use black as a background, and I was quite scared about the way people would receive it,” Nasser said, “but I needed that to depict the battleground of personal experience with alienation.” 

The exhibition is held at Nofa Creative Space, an art space set in the heart of Amman down a narrow alley in Rainbow Street. 

In this century-old house, exhibitions of local and foreign artists combine “creativity, serenity, music, culture and history”, Ghada Khalil, manager at Nofa, told The Jordan Times, adding: “We want it to be a place where the new generation of artists comes, expresses itself, while learning about the ambiance of the old Amman.” 

 The exhibition will run for 10 days, from 10:30 am until 7:00 pm every day.