Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Anisa Ashqar (Hebrew: אניסה אשקר) is a multi-disciplinary artist. She is a painter, performance artist, video artist, and sculptural model. She works in Acre and Tel Aviv.
Her life
Anisa Ashkar was born in 1979 in the Barbour neighborhood in the city of Akko, to a large family of thirteen individuals.
Study it
Anissa began her artistic career in 1988, from the age of nine to seventeen. She learned the art of calligraphy from a traditional calligrapher, overcoming social exclusivity in the art of calligraphy as it was the domain of men only.
In 1998-2000, she studied the history of art and design at Saint Elias Secondary College, Iblin in the Lower Galilee, and then began her studies for a bachelor’s degree in arts at the Beit Berl College of Arts. She finished her studies in 2004. She works in Tel Aviv and Jaffa.
Ashkar's activity combines artistic activity with educational activity over many years. She teaches art and teaches at various academic and educational institutions, including Shenkar College of Arts, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, and the Jewish-Arab Social Center in Jaffa.
Her works
Most of Ashkar's works are based on symbols and myths, mainly female figures (such as Medusa) and animals that represent mythological metaphors (such as the horse and the swan). Most of the performances are accompanied by a man, and these works focus on the dynamic between them. Other elements of different liquids in strong colors, such as milk and coffee, recur in her works. In many of her works, she touches on elements from the history of modern and contemporary Western art, through nods to Van Gogh, Paul Klee, Frida Kahlo, Joseph Beuys and Jackson Pollock.
In her work, Anisa Ashkar uses Arabic calligraphy, which she writes on her face every day. In the first year of her studies, Anisa decided to continue her practice of the art of Arabic calligraphy by writing on her face.
Anisa began by quoting sentences from the poems of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish and the writings of the Syrian poet Muhammad Al-Maghout, such as: “Freedom is taken with claws and teeth.” All of her works carry some wisdom, such as: “My Life,” “Write,” “Teach Me,” “Tonight,” and “More and More.” Daily writing on her face is a daily practice of performance art. The reason for Anissa's writing on her face
The use of face writing is a prominent artistic work performed by the artist Anisa Ashkar. Anisa used to write on the face in Arabic and by hand. She went to the field of face writing because of her feeling of alienation at Beit Berl College, where she was surrounded by colleagues who spoke only Hebrew, and she longed for her Arabic language and found... Writing on the face is a solution.
Achievements and Awards
Anisa Ashqar Awards:
· In 2004, she obtained a distinction in drawing from the Art Institute, Beit Berl College.
· In 2005, she received the Artist-Teacher Grant from the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sports.
· In 2007, she received the Young Artist Award from the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sports Sciences.
· In 2008 she obtained an artistic residency at Kunsthuas, Germany.
· In 2016, an award from Meifal HaPais.
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- Years in active
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