Asim Abu Shakra 1961-1990

Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Asim Abu Shakra, 1994,  no. 40,  p. 50, illustrated

Ronald Fuhrer, Israeli Paintings From Post-Impressionistm to Post Zionism, New York, 1998, p. 238, illustrated in color

The cactus in Abu-Shakra's works has numerous meanings and connotations. Sources for this subject are found in European iconography, Israeli Zionist imagery and the Crucifixion in Christianity. The  artist returned to this motif again and again gradually transforming it into a symbol of personal identification. Abu Shakra tragically lost his life to cancer at the early age of twenty-nine.  Painted the year before his death, this work reflects his realization of his own immortality. Tali Tamir discusses the works from this period and notes: "In his last paintings, as the disease progressed and he faced his imminent death, the exterior background slowly disappeared and the potted cactus became a sublimated expression of severe loneliness: detached from everything, turned entirely in on itself, mindful only of the limited beauty it could still produce." (Tali Tamir, "The Shadow of Foreignness: On the Paintigs of Asim Abu-Shakra", Asim Abu-Shakra, exhibition catalogue, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, 1994, p. 87).