"Collective Identity" is an attempt to express my emotions connected with war in Palestine — a feeling of suffocation and overload. I build the composition almost entirely through red and black. Red becomes a symbol of blood, suffering, and violence, while the dark areas of the painting intensify the atmosphere of fear and oppression.
The entire space is filled with an excess of twisted, tangled materials spreading in different directions, leaving no room to breathe. In this way, I refer to the idea of horror vacui — the fear of empty space — using an overload of forms and the absence of free space as a tool for building psychological tension. The chaos of the composition is meant to convey the experience of a reality completely consumed by conflict.
The figures appearing in the painting remain partially hidden and almost absorbed into the structure of war. Their covered faces symbolize the anonymity of victims and of people whose stories will never be told. I am shocked by the way war strips individuals of their identity, reducing them to invisible elements of a collective tragedy.
