Inass Yassin – Palestinian Artist | Art & Painting from Palestine
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The artist researched family photo albums from the 1980s and employed oil painting portraiture to negotiate the representation and exhibition of women’s images. Integrating painting, sculpture, and site-specific installation, the project draws upon the collective visual memory of the village community—infused with a joyful and festive design aesthetic—to explore how this community constructed its own image across decades, and how the politics of representation have continually shifted over time.
Beauties of The Town
The Museum, The old center of Asira Ash-Shamalieh, Palestine
27th August- 4th September 2022
Exhibition Sections:
"Beauties of the Town." In this project, the artist uses photo albums as a way to negotiate the representation and exhibition of women's portraits. Portrait painting is employed to challenge and unravel the censorship imposed on these women’s faces, allowing them to be exhibited as art. This project highlights themes of visibility, identity, and empowerment. The final exhibition included oil-painted portraits, watercolor greeting paintings, a multimedia homage installation, and a site-specific decorated theater design, all were developed over four years.
The entire process—from painting and negotiation to constructing the theater. The exhibition ultimately brings people together, much like the traditional wedding theaters once did, but it was their first time celebrating an oil portraiture exhibition in the town for both men and women.
Childhood memories from the 1980s—etched deeply in my mind and in the memories of generations that followed through the mid-nineties—came flooding back. The vibrant imagery of the colorful stage, a dream I had cherished for decades, came to life once again when I recreated it in the heart of the old town.
I wasn’t alone in that feeling of joy; hundreds of townspeople, spanning generations who had once stood before that same stage in their youth, shared in the moment. As the colorful stage rose again during the Beauties of the Town exhibition, the heart of the old town pulsed with music and laughter. For several days, everyone danced in celebration—until, like a memory revisited, the stage vanished once more.
“Beauties of The Town” is a site-specific exhibition set in the historic center of Asira Ashamaliya, the artist’s village near Nablus, Palestine. The project introduces a new approach to contemporary Palestinian painting by intertwining portraiture, performance, and multimedia installation as forms of social negotiation and collective reflection on local history and visual culture.
At its heart lies a profound exploration of social life and visual culture in rural Palestine during the 1980s. The work draws on family photo albums from Asira Ashamaliya—many of which were originally developed at Studio Cairo 1956-2019 in Nablus, a photographic studio with which the community shared strong and lasting ties.
Through portrait painting, I began a dialogue with the growing caution surrounding the public display of women’s photographs—an unease that did not exist in the 1980s. Between 2017 and 2021, I searched, painted, and worked around these images, culminating in the 2022 exhibition as an act of artistic and social reflection. My journey through family albums and the lost archive of Studio Cairo became intertwined with questions about what painting means within this cultural and historical frame
This sentiment underscores the exhibition’s dual role as an artistic endeavor and a social dialogue. It challenges contemporary perceptions of female representation while celebrating the women who filled the artist’s childhood with warmth and vibrancy. Inass recalls the past, when as children, they would compete to climb the colorful wedding theater before the celebrations began, sharing whispered tales of platonic lovers.
By reconstructing and presenting these artistic, visual, and performative elements, “Beauties of The Town” becomes an art intervention that reimagines a complete scene from the 1980s—one that was largely overlooked within the broader visual culture. It does not revisit folklore, but rather revives the overlooked visual language and aesthetics of rural life in Palestine.
"as children, they would compete to climb the colorful wedding theater before the celebrations began, sharing whispered tales of platonic lovers."
Al-Loje: Performance at the Opening by Zinnar Troup ,Osama Yassin, Hadeel Fadda, Kareem Yassin, Ritta Hamadneh
Sculpture: Al-Loje Rural Theater, 3 x 4.5 x 3.45 m, wood, rugs, tapestries, textiles, chairs, balloons, plastic decorations and candies
“Out of the experience grew a series of small watercolor drawings capturing the Loje as a living mise-en-scène—radiant with the joy and rhythm that once filled the stage. These drawings evolved into the Greeting Paintings, a body of work that mirrors the taste and visual language of rural Palestinian communities in the 1980s.
Painted with exuberant color, they weave together olive and pomegranate branches, patterned rugs, mythic figures of Venus, animals, portraits, chairs, and balloons—a celebration of daily life rendered with naïveté, flatness, and joy, often inspired by tapestries that arrived from different regions. In contrast to the political and symbolic tropes that dominate Palestinian visual culture, these works reclaim the flow of domestic celebration—an aesthetic once seamlessly integrated into the household and the natural environment of the village—creating a distinctive visual field of the 1980s: a space to rediscover beauty in the ordinary and to revive a rural sensibility that was both joyful and unbound.”
"Employing oil painting, I embarked on a journey of negotiation with the reserved attitudes toward exhibiting photos of women, an attitude which didn’t exist during the 1980s.
The exhibition "Beauties of The Town" presents a rich exploration of photographs borrowed from family albums in Asira Al-Shamaliya, most of which were developed and printed in the 1980s at Studio Cairo (1956-2019) in Nablus. The installation was created using archival footage and found frames following the passing of Abo Jamil , the studio owner, in 2019.
Studio Cairo was founded in 1956 by Mohamad Abo Hasireh, known as Abo Jamil. He managed the studio for decades alongside his lifelong friend, who also went by the nickname Abo Jamil. Together, they worked as photographers, making Studio Cairo a vibrant stop amid the hustle and bustle of Nablus, the largest shopping hub in Palestine.
Until the late 1980s, clients from diverse backgrounds visited the studio attic, dressing in costumes and makeup to pose for solo and group photo sessions with family and loved ones. Abo Jamil developed and printed thousands of photographs, displaying his work in shop windows and vitrines for decades. However, after the late 1980s, the number of clients declined, leading Abo Jamil to gradually remove his work from public view. In 2006, he made the heartbreaking decision to burn his own archive.
I wasn't the only one overwhelmed with joy to see the stage reappear before me after decades; hundreds of townsfolk, spanning generations that had experienced this stage in their youth, shared in the delight. As the colorful stage graced the heart of the old town during the Beauties of The Town exhibition, everyone reveled in its presence, dancing with joy for several days before it vanished once more.
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