Series of drawings, mixed media on 5/5 graph paper, variable dimensions

Taysir Batniji began this series of drawings in 2011, at a time when he had been unable to return home to Gaza for several years, prevented from doing so by the blockade imposed by Israel.

Taking the grid, the square, or the pixel as his starting point, his aim was likely to “pass the time,” but also to break free from the image, to rethink representation while attempting to escape it. This exercise led the artist to revisit certain highly iconic press photographs with “painful” content: the Twin Towers during the September 11, 2001, attacks, blindfolded Palestinian prisoners... Until he completely distanced himself from his subject, frantically and mechanically filling grids with patterns borrowed from Islamic art and Palestinian embroidery—or others gathered here and there in his daily life and then transformed. Then, the process is simple: cover the paper with these motifs, noting the start and end dates, and forcing herself to start over in case of a mistake.

The proliferation of these drawn attempts—in which difference and repetition intertwine—may signal a need to escape the present and a desire to make sense of things; for the artist, they serve as a space for reflection and meditation, a process-oriented interlude that leads him toward other works, such as the QR codes in Missing Objects, for example.

Sophie Jaulmes, 2023