Fatma Shanan Leaves of Grass 27.03.2021 – 25.04.2021 EN DE DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM is pleased to present LEAVES OF GRASS, the second solo show with the gallery in Berlin by FATMA SHANAN (b. 1986 in Julis, Israel / lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel). The exhibition opens Saturday, 27 March and is on view currently by appointment only, through Saturday 25 April. We look forward welcoming you 7 days a week 11 AM – 6 PM. A dozen oil paintings on canvas, both small and large-scale, comprise this intimate exhibition by Israel-based painter Fatma Shanan. In most of the works we see a female figure in an off-white dress—in frontal view, standing pensive and solitary in a verdant garden, tensely crouching or reclining on an undefined ground or arching backward over an outdoor fountain on a wall dappled with sunlight. Throughout this body of work, branches and flowers surround, embrace, or emanate from the strained movements or poses of the figure, a representation of the artist herself. The title Leaves of Grass is borrowed from a volume by the American poet Walt Whitman, first published in 1855. As Whitman is generally interpreted, each leaf of grass is unique, but many blades together create an interconnected whole, a community. Fatma Shanan dives into her inner world to depict this existential duality, an ongoing allusion in her oeuvre in part due to her upbringing in a Druze village in northern Israel. With a signature technique in which contours, fabrics, petals and skin are rendered in loose brushstrokes and mosaic-like color application, Fatma Shanan explores an interior emotional landscape as she communes with her external natural environment, this time staking out new territory. The artist-figure attempts to set down roots in this undefined natural space, or, alternately, grasps its branches and blossoms for grounding. At the same time these tendrils and branches appear to overtake her, sprouting from her body, even her face, like grass stubbornly growing through cracks in a sidewalk. A symbiosis, a transcendence, a resilience is implied. Fatma Shanan’s previous works revolved around depictions of a female body, often her own, in domestic, private spaces and using recurring motifs like the oriental carpet to represent physical and psychological boundaries. Yet she now moves into a wider, wilder zone. essay EN DE HUMAN, NATURE By KIMBERLY BRADLEY “I celebrate myself, and sing myself / And what I assume you shall assume / For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” These opening words of “Song of Myself”—the first poem in American poet Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, the 1855 volume for which this new body of work by painter Fatma Shanan is named—capture the ongoing relationship between the “I” and the “we” that underlies so much of this artist’s oeuvre. In these mostly small-scale paintings, a female figure moves through space in an off-white dress. She stands pensive and solitary in a verdant garden; she crouches or reclines, with palpable muscular tension, on an undefined ground. In an act of surrender or resignation, she arches backward over a sevil (outdoor water fountain) on a gray wall dappled with sunlight. In several paintings, this protagonist—a representation of the artist herself—is surrounded, even overtaken by branches and flowers that seem at times to sprout from her body’s rigid poses. Whitman’s work is often interpreted to signify that each of his titular leaves of grass is unique and beautiful: an individual. But multiple blades, together, also create an interconnected whole, a community. Shanan’s works have long explored the duality between the sovereignty of the individual and the cohesion, but also the limitations, of community through symbolic means. In many of her previous paintings, portraits of a female body, often her own, appear in domestic settings and with recurring motifs, like the Oriental carpet, that directly or indirectly delineate physical and psychological boundaries and mediate her place in the world. READ MORE Fatma Shanan, Green background, 2021, Oil on linen, on wood, Unique, 19 x 30.5 x 4.5 cm Fatma Shanan, Self portrait flowers, 2021, Oil on linen, on wood, 47.5 x 33.3 x 5 cm videos Fatma Shanan Leaves of Grass Amely Deiss meets Fatma Shanan publications Fatma Shanan – Leaves of Grass €15 Add to Cart instagram facebook OPENING HOURS Mon-Sat: 11.00AM — 6.00PM CONTACT DETAILS Dittrich & Schlechtriem ConceptStore GmbH Linienstrasse 23, 10178 Berlin, Germany Phone +493024342462 info@dittrich-schlechtriem.com