by Valerie Behiery
Katie Miranda Al Ali is committed to illuminating beauty and truth through the mediums of painting, comics, and Arabic calligraphy jewellery. Passionate about art, the artist studied at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, receiving both a BFA and an MFA. From 2005-2008, Katie lived in the West Bank cities of Hebron and Ramallah both volunteering as a human rights worker with the International Solidarity Movement and studying Arabic calligraphy with award-winning Palestinian calligrapher Ehab Thabet. Upon her return to the US, she began exploring jewellery making, took her shahadah, and created Katie Miranda Studios where she designs sterling silver calligraphic jewellery, draws cartoons and paints. Katie Miranda has exhibited her art both at home and abroad, including at the Sharjah Capital of Islamic Culture festival in the United Arab Emirates in 2014. Her illustrations have appeared in many publications like the Middle East Eye, Mondoweiss, Dissident Voice, The Middle East Monitor and The Electronic Intifada.
You have an upcoming solo exhibition opening on October 11th at Dagmar Painter’s Jerusalem Fund Gallery in Washington, D.C. Could you tell us a bit about the show?
I have about 15 years of work on show, including fine art, illustration, jewellery, and cartoons on the subject of Palestine. The title of the show is “Sumoud w Todamon” which translates to “Steadfastness and Solidarity.” I started creating art on this subject in late 2005 when I first visited Palestine to volunteer as a human rights worker. I stayed there for three years, landing a job as a cartoonist at a local paper after I became too traumatized to do the work with the International Solidarity Movement anymore. Eventually, I came back to the US but the struggle, the people, the land didn’t leave me. It’s a subject that is inspirational to me. My first output was a series of 9 x 12 inch illustrations in acrylic paint of people or situations I experienced that I called “Postcards from Palestine.” (acrylic on canvas, 9 x 12 inches 2006-2007) The illustration was the front of the postcard and then I had accompanying text on the backs which consisted of letters addressed to the American people. It was my version of “the weather is nice; wish you were here,” except it wasn’t nice at all; it was very violent and very disturbing. After I returned to the US, I started submitting political cartoons to various news sites and sometimes they got published.
Your experience in Palestine continues to profoundly shape your life and art, including your new work inspired by biblical themes. Is this something you will continue to pursue?
To be clear there are only two paintings so far with a biblical theme, although I was hoping to do more. I want to do an Annunciation, a David and Goliath, and a Madonna and Child, but I paint in a very detailed manner and so the works take a long time. It’s also incredibly expensive to create a painting. You have to pay models —and sometimes a photographer— if you want certain lighting conditions. I spent close to $500 on the photography, models, and supplies for the “Pietà” (oil and acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20 inches, 2019) painting that took me four months to paint.
Last year, I was raptly listening to Jordan Peterson’s biblical lecture series. He goes deeply into the psychological significance of the biblical stories, stories that are the basis for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Since I have a connection to all three religions, both as a convert to Islam and as someone with a mixed Jewish and Christian heritage, I was deeply fascinated with Peterson’s take on the Book of Genesis. He interweaves the stories with what science has discovered about human evolution and biology. Part of his presentations included slides of Renaissance biblical art, which brought me back to my university art history lessons, albeit with a new perspective. These lectures inspired me to return to biblical themes and to juxtapose them with the situation that modern-day Palestinians face. These are ancient themes, pre-biblical themes even, that still have significance in modern times. That’s why people are still drawn to them.
Already in 2004, I had an idea in my head to paint a Pietà on the apartheid wall (acrylic on apartheid wall, 2006) and, fortunately, I was able to realize that dream. Unfortunately, the mural was spray painted over with lots of graffiti and I’ve wanted to redo it ever since. This next part was published on my blog “I was particularly motivated by the tragic loss of precious lives during the Great March of Return. One feels very helpless on the other side of the world, watching people being massacred for participating in demonstrations which, had they taken place where we live, would not have been met with such lethal force. Those of us living in liberal democracies should never take for granted the hard-won freedoms we have.
This digital painting has a history which started in 2006 while I was volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement in occupied Palestine. We were sent to Balata refugee camp because the Israeli army had invaded and was shooting up the place. The army had announced a curfew on the whole camp which meant that any Palestinian caught in the street would be shot. We, as internationals, were not supposed to be shot so we delivered food and medicine to needy people who could not go out. The next day there were two martyrs, killed by the Israeli army: Ibrahim Issa and Mohammed Natoor, both 17. They had been drinking tea on their roof when the Israeli army shot them. We watched their funeral procession from a balcony the following day. The way I coped with the horror around me was to draw and paint. Over the next few days I completed the drawing below in ballpoint pen. The writing says “the blood of the martyrs will fertilize the earth” which was inspired by a Diego Rivera mural of the same name. It was spring time in Palestine and flowers were blooming, the weather was beautiful, the sky was blue; a stark contrast to the death and mayhem. I kept repeating over and over in my head “this place is so beautiful, but so horrible, but so beautiful, but so horrible.” I showed the drawing to some people in the camp. One man had recently lost his brother to the Israeli army and he asked me to paint it as a mural on his house which I did. I always knew this concept had the potential to be better and so I decided to redo it digitally and now that I know calligraphy, to make it even better.
Read the entire article: http://islamicartsmagazine.com/magazine/view/natural_meanderings_in_many_media/