Malak Mattar — Gaza Artist and Survivor

“When Peace Dies, “When Peace Dies, Embrace It, It Will Live Again,” acrylic on canvas, 2021 by Malak Mattar (courtesy of the artist).

14 JULY 2021 • By Jordan Elgrably
“I survived,” Malak writes on her Instagram account. “I’m a officially a four Israeli attack survivor by the age of 21.”

 

Jordan Elgrably

Malak Mattar.

In 2014, Malak Mattar was 14 years old when the 51-day Israeli assault known euphemistically as “Operation Protective Edge” was raging around her Gaza City home. Like other children, she found herself extremely bored, fearful and anxious, since it was not safe to go outside — not that it was really safer indoors. Malak had already lived through the major attacks of 2009-2010 and 2012, but it wasn’t until July of 2014 that she began drawing and painting in earnest, to “discharge all of my negative energy,” she says. Sometimes she thinks it was just a matter of time, as she grew up in an artistic family (her uncle is the Gazan painter Mohammed Musallam.

To get started with drawing and water coloring, Malak had been given some low-grade paper and water colors at her government school, where in fact she excelled in political science, which had led to her winning a scholarship out of some 70,000 Palestinian schoolchildren to do her university studies in Turkey. These materials were all she had at her disposal during the 51-day “war” in Gaza.

She quickly discovered she had a budding talent and loved the self-expression that intense colors allowed. Malak has been painting ever since, although now with acrylics and oil on canvas. She currently lives in Istanbul, but when I spoke to her she had been back in Gaza on break since March, and thus found herself present in her family’s home when a new Israeli bombing campaign began in May — in response, they claimed, to the rockets fired on Israel by Hamas.

“Mother Protecting Her Children,” oil on canvas, 2021, by Malak Mattar (courtesy of the artist).

“This is my mother. It’s an oil painting I started during the attack of 2021. I depicted my family and the fear of my siblings when there was no shelter but my mum’s embrace. The worst part is the damage done to one’s psychology, of living under attack and feeling unprotected, because Gaza has no shelters or safe places. That’s the reason 19 families were wiped out when they were staying inside their homes. The scariest part is facing the most heavy and complex weapons in the world with my own body, which is very vulnerable and weak under attack,” Malak says.

“The fire in the painting is the bombings that were happening too close and once the bombing is fired, it gives the same effect as a huge fire with its color and reflections in the sky.”

Malak Mattar, self-portrait (2019).

Malak goes on, “During this last attack, I drew many sketches, stories of people and families wiped out, I painted figures…I’m keen on turning these pieces into paintings. Unfortunately no artist from Gaza has painted the last attack, so I think it’s very important to document it. I’m going to start working on it very soon. I still have some commissions to finish, but after this I’ll work full-time on it.”
Malak is working toward her BA, studying political science, international relations and economy at a small private university in Istanbul. I asked her how she finds herself enmeshed with both art and politics.

“Being born in Gaza there’s no choice but to be political, because I grew up hearing politics in school and at home with my family and elsewhere. It was something that I was really interested in, but in high school it’s a diploma and a highly competitive one at that. I wanted to leave Gaza by any means, so I was happy when I won the scholarship.”

"Grandmas Bird" Malak Matar cover
Grandma’s Bird

She says she was surprised to find that the Turkish approach to education isn’t as balanced as she had expected. “I feel like I’m just studying the Turkish point of view, it doesn’t feel like a neutral education, especially because I signed up for Middle East Studies, and I was shocked at how they tell the story of Palestine and Israel — they claim that Palestinians sold their lands to Israel.”

During her first year abroad in Istanbul, Malak says that she felt she had traveled from one prison to another, from Gaza to Turkey, because of the inevitable restrictions placed on someone traveling on a Palestinian travel document that is frequently challenged at international borders. Early on, Malak found herself receiving invitations from France and Great Britain but got rejected because she didn’t have the right visas. Meanwhile she has exhibited her artwork in India, Spain, Paris, Fontenay Sous-Bois, 11 states in the USA, four exhibitions in the UK and a few cities in Turkey.

Malak has another year to go to get her degree and returns to Istanbul in September. In August, meanwhile, she will be publishing a bilingual Arabic-English children’s book titled Grandma’s Bird on the 2014 Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, with writing and drawings reflecting her own experience. See more of her work on Instagram.

 

Jordan Elgrably

Jordan Elgrably is an American, French, and Moroccan writer and translator. His stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in many anthologies and reviews, including Apulée, Salmagundi, and the Paris Review. Editor-in-chief and founder of The Markaz Review, he is the cofounder and... Read more

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Letter From Turkey—Solidarity, Grief, Anger and Fear

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Yemen War Survivors Speak in What Have You Left Behind?

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Palestinian Territories Under Siege But Season 4 of Fauda Goes to Brussels and Beirut Instead

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Tiba al-Ali: A Death Foretold on Social Media

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Mohamed Makhzangi Despairs at Man’s Cruelty to Animals

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Museums in Exile—MO.CO’s show for Chile, Sarajevo & Palestine

12 DECEMBER 2022 • By Jordan Elgrably
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15 OCTOBER 2022 • By TMR
You Don’t Have to Be A Super Hero to Be a Heroine
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Ziad Kalthoum: Trajectory of a Syrian Filmmaker

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Abundant Middle Eastern Talent at the ’22 Avignon Theatre Fest

18 JULY 2022 • By Nada Ghosn
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War and Trauma in Yemen: Asim Abdulaziz’s “1941”

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War and Trauma in Yemen: Asim Abdulaziz’s “1941”
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Featured Artist: Steve Sabella, Beyond Palestine

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Nektaria Anastasiadou: “Gold in Taksim Square”

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Steve Sabella: Excerpts from “The Parachute Paradox”

15 JUNE 2022 • By Steve Sabella
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Fragmented Love in Alison Glick’s “The Other End of the Sea”

16 MAY 2022 • By Nora Lester Murad
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Nowruz and The Sins of the New Day
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Mariupol, Ukraine and the Crime of Hospital Bombing

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Mariupol, Ukraine and the Crime of Hospital Bombing
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15 MARCH 2022 • By Khalil Younes
Fiction: “Skin Calluses” by Khalil Younes
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24 FEBRUARY 2022 • By Jordan Elgrably
“There’s Nothing Worse Than War”
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15 FEBRUARY 2022 • By Micaela Amateau Amato
Silver Stories from Artist Micaela Amateau Amato
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Fiction from “Free Fall”: I fled the city as a murderer whose crime had just been uncovered

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Abeer Esber, Nouha Homad
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Temptations of the Imagination: how Jana Elhassan and Samar Yazbek transmogrify the world

10 JANUARY 2022 • By Rana Asfour
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The Vanishing: Are Arab Christians an Endangered Minority?

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Will Love Triumph in the Midst of Gaza’s 14-Year Siege?

11 OCTOBER 2021 • By Jordan Elgrably
Will Love Triumph in the Midst of Gaza’s 14-Year Siege?
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“The Location of the Soul According to Benyamin Alhadeff”—a story by Nektaria Anastasiadou

15 SEPTEMBER 2021 • By Nektaria Anastasiadou
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Palestinian Akram Musallam Writes of Loss and Memory

29 AUGUST 2021 • By khulud khamis
Palestinian Akram Musallam Writes of Loss and Memory
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Heba Hayek’s Gaza Memories

1 AUGUST 2021 • By Shereen Malherbe
Heba Hayek’s Gaza Memories
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1 AUGUST 2021 • By Heba Hayek
“Guns and Figs” from Heba Hayek’s new Gaza book
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Wafa Shami’s Palestinian Mulukhiyah

25 JULY 2021 • By Wafa Shami
Wafa Shami’s Palestinian Mulukhiyah
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Fadi Kattan’s Fatteh Ghazawiya الفتة الغزاوية
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When War is Just Another Name for Murder

15 JULY 2021 • By Norman G. Finkelstein
When War is Just Another Name for Murder
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14 JULY 2021 • By Selma Dabbagh
Gazan Skies, from the novel “Out of It”
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Malak Mattar — Gaza Artist and Survivor

14 JULY 2021 • By Jordan Elgrably
Malak Mattar — Gaza Artist and Survivor
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The Gaza Mythologies

14 JULY 2021 • By Ilan Pappé
The Gaza Mythologies
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The Semantics of Gaza, War and Truth

14 JULY 2021 • By Mischa Geracoulis
The Semantics of Gaza, War and Truth
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No Exit
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Gaza, You and Me

14 JULY 2021 • By Abdallah Salha
Gaza, You and Me
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Four Poems from Mosab Abu Toha

14 JULY 2021 • By Mosab Abu Toha
Four Poems from Mosab Abu Toha
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Gaza’s Catch-22s

14 JULY 2021 • By Khaled Diab
Gaza’s Catch-22s
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Making a Film in Gaza

14 JULY 2021 • By Elana Golden
Making a Film in Gaza
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Gaza IS Palestine

14 JULY 2021 • By Jenine Abboushi
Gaza IS Palestine
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A Response to “Gaza: Mowing the Lawn” 2014-15

14 JULY 2021 • By Tony Litwinko
A Response to “Gaza: Mowing the Lawn” 2014-15
Centerpiece

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14 JULY 2021 • By Sagi Refael
“Gaza: Mowing the Lawn” by Artist Jaime Scholnick
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Sailing to Gaza to Break the Siege

14 JULY 2021 • By Greta Berlin
Sailing to Gaza to Break the Siege
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14 JULY 2021 • By Hadani Ditmars
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ISIS and the Absurdity of War in the Age of Twitter

4 JULY 2021 • By Jessica Proett
ISIS and the Absurdity of War in the Age of Twitter
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A New Book on Music, Palestine-Israel & the “Three State Solution”

28 JUNE 2021 • By Mark LeVine
A New Book on Music, Palestine-Israel & the “Three State Solution”
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The Murals of Yemen’s Haifa Subay

14 MAY 2021 • By Farah Abdessamad
The Murals of Yemen’s Haifa Subay
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Beautiful/Ugly: Against Aestheticizing Israel’s Separation Wall

14 MAY 2021 • By Malu Halasa
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A visual poem from Hala Alyan: Gaza

14 MARCH 2021 • By TMR
A visual poem from Hala Alyan: Gaza
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The Hidden World of Istanbul’s Rums

21 FEBRUARY 2021 • By Rana Haddad
The Hidden World of Istanbul’s Rums
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Ten Years of Hope and Blood

14 FEBRUARY 2021 • By Robert Solé
Ten Years of Hope and Blood
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Threading the Needle: Najwa Najjar’s “Between Heaven and Earth”

14 DECEMBER 2020 • By Ammiel Alcalay
Threading the Needle: Najwa Najjar’s “Between Heaven and Earth”
Weekly

Assaulting Free Speech in the Israel/Palestine Debate

6 DECEMBER 2020 • By TMR
Assaulting Free Speech in the Israel/Palestine Debate
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An American in Istanbul Between Muslim and Christian Worlds

15 NOVEMBER 2020 • By Anne-Marie O'Connor
An American in Istanbul Between Muslim and Christian Worlds

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