Drawing the Line for Palestine: Review of Inga Bystram at P21 Gallery
Calm, serene, confident, self-assured, vivid, resilient…..these are some of the emotions that Inga Bystram's vivid watercolours inspire in their viewers. The palpable sense of solidarity and strength pervades her artwork, as she documents one of the biggest collective and global movements in recent times.
Hosted at the P21 Gallery in Bloomsbury, Inga Bystram's thirty watercolours documented people at marches and rallies for Palestine in London. The viewer is welcomed in the gallery by a time-lapse video of Bystram, crouching over paper on pavements, in the midst of demonstrations for Palestinian solidarity with her medium of choice: uni fine-line black waterproof 0.8 pen and Sakura watercolours. Anything she saw, she deemed noteworthy and immortalised in her watercolour sketches.
The exhibition is aptly titled, Drawing the Line for Palestine. Through the harmony of her irregular and linear sketches and splashes of colours Bystram manages to capture the enormity of each moment and the severity of reality that necessitated these marches across London.
The thirty watercolours document the speakers, activists, community leaders, parents, and children voicing their relentless support for Palestinian resistance. Dotted around a large Palestinian flag in the middle of the room, Bystram's watercolours focus on the individual experience; the individual contribution to the cause, even when documenting a collective of marchers. Her colourful palette infuses a vitality and liveliness to the scenes, which contradicts how many view these marches. Bystram illustrates how they are actually community spaces, where people express ideas, educate themselves and each other, and create outlets for self-expression. These vibrant spaces welcome people from all backgrounds and harmonise them.
Bystram also depicts the aura and didactic force of speakers at these marches, brimming with passion and fervour. In a watercolour of Dr. Ismael Patel, Head of Friends of Al-Aqsa at a London march for Palestine, Bystram spotlights his unfaltering strength. His tall and lean stature, drawn by sharply angled lines, shows the determination of the aged optician, as he grips the microphone to voice the necessity of action among the march participants. He is framed by the Palestinian green, red, white and black colours, with a bystander wearing a keffiyeh in the background. Bystram witnesses and captures a scene, set as perfectly as a staged photograph but rendering a scene of sublime spontaneity.
Haneen Khano, the British-Palestinian curator of the exhibition, opts to create a quiet and contemplative space, which is squarely trained on Bystram's work. There is a raw and personal quality to the experience that gradually pulls the viewer to absorb, reflect and study the personal nature of Bystram's work. In conjunction with a looped video of students elucidating on why they chose to raise their voices for Palestine, the artworks become gateways to empathise with the lived experiences of speakers and marchers. They invite us to cast an eye inwards in introspection and to use this as an opportunity to acknowledge the personal reasons why these artworks resonate with us.
As demonstrated in the watercolour of Dr. Patel, there is a palpitating sense of steadfastness and hopefulness, which emanates from each of Bystram's work. None can resist the feeling of resoluteness in this moment that we live in than in a watercolour showing a scene from a Parents of Palestine demonstration. Under a blood red banner of "Ceasefire Now", parents play with their children: a scene, which serves as the harbinger of conveying injustices of the past to the children in the present to fight to change the future.
While the exhibition ended on 20 September, follow the artist's artworks and depictions on her instagram @ingabystram. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for artworks that have an intrinsically transportive quality.