ASIM ABU SHAKRA | CACTUS

Collection of the artist, Umm al-Fahm

Estate of the artist (thence by descent), Umm al-Fahm

Acquired from the above by the present owner 

Tal Ben-Zvi, Kamal Boullata, W.J.T. Mitchell, Anton Shammas, Nira Itzhaki, Asim Abu Shaqra, Milan 2013, pp. 167-168, illustrated / in colour 

"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...[and] 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 cited in: "The Shadow of Foreignness: On the Paintings of Asim Abu-Shakra" in Exh. Cat., Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Asim Abu-Shakra, 1994, p. 87