Absent Presence II
During the first Intifada against Israeli occupation (1987 – 1993) Mansour and other artists in the ‘New Vision’ art movement started in 1987 boycotted Israeli supplies. Instead, Mansour used local materials like mud and henna in his work. Sliman Mansour draws inspiration from the subject of the olive tree and has focused on the theme of ‘land’ since 1970. this work is centered on the individual figure to convey the ‘different states of exhausting anticipation or loss,’ resulting from his experience of living under the occupation. Natural materials are focal in Sliman Mansour’s recent artworks. The combination of mud and acrylic on wood reflects the tension between the rough cracks of mud which is dominant, in contrast to adjacent areas of smoothly painted acrylic colors. Mansour’s works represent the stalemate situation in the Palestinian current reality and the subsequent changes that permeate the nature of Palestinians as people.
