Najat El-Taji El-Khairy- She Speaks Through Her Art Preserving Palestine's Cultural Heritage Through the Modern Embodiment of Traditional Palestinian Art

Najat El-Taji El-Khairy

https://www.instagram.com/najatpalestine

Since 2004, NAJAT’s artistic mission has been to preserve Palestine’s cultural heritage through the Modern Embodiement of Traditional Palestinian Art.

Pioneering this powerful idea has inspired many others in this shared mission. NAJAT commends this and believes that Together we go Further.

 

She Speaks Through Her Art

Born in 1948, of Palestinian origin, Najat El-Taji El-Khairy attended a French school in Cairo and completed a BA in English Literature at King Saud University in Riyadh.

Fascinated with art since childhood, she studied music, ballet dancing, painting, embroidery, stained glass, pottery and silk painting - while raising a family of four children with her husband Mazen - born in Jerusalem.

Palestinian embroidery in particular caught her attention. She was captivated by its outstanding floral and geometric designs, so she started collecting village dresses & other embroidered articles. She still owns and exhibits them today with the porcelain art she re-creates from them.

In 1988, Najat moved with her family from Saudi Arabia to Montreal Canada, where she further developed her artistic skills. In particular, she perfected painting on porcelain under the guidance of a Hungarian Master from Herend. Soonafter, NAJAT opened her atelier, Kery Porcelain, specializing in personalized and exclusive gift items for different occasions.

Najat was also a dedicated researcher, lecturer and advocate on Palestinian art and heritage.

As she perfected her porcelain painting skills, in 2003, she developed the idea of merging two of her favorite art forms - Embroidery and Porcelain Painting. In 2004, she began producing stitch-perfect painted replicas of embroidery on porcelain, along with other forms of Palestinian art on porcelain.

This is now her artistic mission in life.

Every piece is unique and original. Najat uses a variety of copyrighted painting techniques developed over her career. Meticulous work with strict attention to detail is critical. After painting, the porcelain undergoes several high temperature kiln firings developed by the artist. In this way, the art is preserved in Najat’s own unique way. Her artwork is displayed in various museums and galleries throughout North America. https://www.najat.ca/about

 

Art and installation by Najat El-Taji El-Khairy.

Najat El-Taji El-Khairy art in above image closer at Meridian Gallery.

Olive Harvest- Forbidden

Najat - نجاة

  · Forbidden colours

"A 1980 law forbidding artwork of "political significance" banned art composed of the four colours of the Palestinian flag, red, green, white and black. Palestinians were arrested for displaying such artwork. The ban was lifted after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Palestinian artists would not be allowed to paint a flower field using those colours. Even avoiding the "direct and noticeable" use of the colours, an artist would nevertheless be committing felony. The police would storm the art gallery in the West Bank at the time and storm artists houses and confiscate them."

 

The forbidden colors are rendering freely these sceneries of the peaceful olive grove. They depict the village women, wearing their beautiful hand embroidred Palestinian costumes, picking the fruits of peace during the festive olive harvest season. Cross stitch motifs, taken from Palestinian patterns and designs, paint the fields and dunes surrounding them, asserting the identity of the land. Motifs like: “The Walls of Jerusalem”, “the Road to Nablus”, “the Old Man’s teeth” and “The Star of Bethlehem” The map of Palestine always hidden in the olive branches asserts its presence on this land.

 

Nostalgia by Najat

An olive grove with its trees bearing the fruits of peace, in harmony with the Palestinian cross stitch embroidery patterns that embellish the women’s village dresses, the flower of Ramla, and the star of Bethlehem are combined to stimulate a nostalgic feeling to our beloved land.

 

Technique: Hand painting using raised enamel to give each leaf a dignified luminous effect. Pen work is used for the cross stitch patterns. The Porcelain tile is then fired several times to preserve the work.

Palestinian Existence by Najat

Najat El-Khairy

@palestinianart

 

najatpalesti

What is Home? a poem by Mosab Abu Toha

https://poets.org

Mosab Abu Toha

What is home: 
it is the shade of trees on my way to school
    before they were uprooted.
It is my grandparents’ black-and-white wedding 
    photo before the walls crumbled. 
It is my uncle’s prayer rug, where dozens of ants
   slept on wintry nights, before it was looted and
   put in a museum. 
It is the oven my mother used to bake bread and 
   roast chicken before a bomb reduced our house 
   to ashes. 
It is the café where I watched football matches
   and played—

My child stops me: Can a four-letter word hold
   all of these? 

From Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha. Copyright © 2022 by Mosab Abu Toha. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC, on behalf of City Lights Publishers.

 

Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet and founder of the Edward Said Library, Gaza’s only English-language library. He is a former visiting poet at Harvard’s department of comparative literature.  Photo credit: Mohamed Mehdy