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@underneathcherryleaves

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tell me how my nature feels

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by @underneathcherryleaves

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12 days ago

I had another son by @underneathcherryleaves

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4 months ago

by @underneathcherryleaves

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9 months ago

taken in Cavalaire-sur-Mer by @underneathcherryleaves

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a year ago

thrilled to finally announce the birth of mine and Katie’s son, Stanley- brother of Ube.
Stanley is loving, sassy, and a bit mischievous 😈 by @underneathcherryleaves

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2 years ago

Florence !! by @underneathcherryleaves

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2 years ago

this one’s called John and you should listen to his new album on Spotify
@prodbyjackk by @underneathcherryleaves

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2 years ago

T.V. SANTHOSH (B. 1968)
Your Terrorist, Our Freedom Fighter

2004 / OIL ON CANVAS / SIZE 5’ X 8’ (DIPTYCH)

not my writing obvi. Worth noting that diptychs are often used for venerating religious icons. by @underneathcherryleaves

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2 years ago

Part 2

In addition to materiality, Taqiyya’s work also centers process. The practice of creating these sculptures allows him to work through the wreckage and trauma of the collective memory as well as his own. He aims to make sense of the senseless. One can also imagine that the process of manipulating and interweaving small scraps of metal is self-soothing through the overwhelming anxiety and despair of constant bombardment and harassment, in the same way that repetitive, methodical practices like tatreez (a Palestinian form of embroidery) induce a meditative state. Many of his works also focus on Palestinian identity and culture to regain a sense of self and community amidst the displacement, erasure, and turmoil. In 1993, when the Oslo Accords were put into effect, he was only 12. The Accords prevented Palestinians from working in Israel, so his father lost his job and Taqiyya was forced to leave school to help financially support his family. Because of this, much of his art aims to reconstruct childhood memories with that which destroyed them. He creates miniatures reminiscent of his childhood toys, images of a Bedouin village, memories from his time in the refugee camp, and symbols of Palestinian heritage such as an Arab coffee urn and a traditional taboon oven for bread. You’ll also find symbols of the traditional Palestinian art canon in his work, like keys symbolizing the physical keys Palestinians took with them when they were initially displaced. These keys are often worn around the necks of displaced peoples and even inherited by younger generations as the only remaining part of their occupied homes and histories.

A reminder that learning needs to be accompanied by action or it’s useless, so protest, contact your reps, boycott and donate wherever you can. by @underneathcherryleaves

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2 years ago

Part 1

Majdi Abu Taqiyya is an artist stationed within Gaza, Palestine, so his perspective and practice are different from some of the diasporic artists we’ve covered. Born in 1980, his practice began as a little kid as a means of coping growing up during the first intifada. Raised in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza strip, most of Taqiyya’s early memories are of oppression, violence, and displacement. This displacement and lack of resources are what shaped his focus on materiality. His primary practice of creating miniature sculpture employs found materials like shrapnel, bullets, and tear gas canisters. Often, Taqiyya goes out to gather the materials himself, but he also engages with his community by transforming donated materials of activists into works of art. These works commemorate revolutionaries, journalists, medical professionals, and other martyrs with the very weaponry that killed them, like his recreation of the iconic image of Razan al-Najjar wearing the paramedic outfit in which she died at the hands of Israeli snipers as she volunteered at a protest. This medium is a testament to the unbreakable will of the Palestinian spirit. Taqiyya is well aware of the spiritual and transformative quality to his work: “to me, it is a form of resistance”. When his brother suffered a gunshot wound protesting against illegal occupation at the Great Return March and had to have the bullet extracted, he brought the bullet back to the artist and asked him to “make something beautiful”. I think the scale of these works is also significant. As a boy with no real home, space, or way of knowing where he’d be going next, and as an adult living under constant surveillance, wherein flags, cultural art, and even colors were criminalized, miniatures function as an almost undetectable means of carrying resistance and memory with you wherever you go. by @underneathcherryleaves

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2 years ago

thinking bout the commodification of health and wellness and the self and the earth and other things so I made a big lavender filled with lavender to relax and this ubermensch named Ube as a body double and a skimpy outfit to remind myself I have a body and some other things by @underneathcherryleaves

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2 years ago

April, come she will, when streams are ripe and swelled with rain
May, she will stay, resting in my arms again
June, she’ll change her tune, in restless walks she’ll prowl the night
July, she will fly, and give no warning to her flight by @underneathcherryleaves

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2 years ago