Through processes of burying, soaking, dyeing, embedding, and rubbing, Dala Nasser (b. 1990 in Tyre; lives and works in Beirut) creates indexical paintings of land, working primarily in Beirut and the South of Lebanon, where her family has had a farm for generations. In opposition to the sweeping vistas offered by traditional landscape painting, Nasser’s canvases provide close-up views of the markings of political and environmental violence, erosion, and toxicity.
For her Carnegie International commission Tomb of King Hiram (2022), Nasser takes as subject a ruin that sits at the crossroads of ancient history, current geopolitics, and everyday life. The work engages with the 600–400 BCE tomb of King Hiram, the Phoenician king of Tyre, who is said to have supplied cedarwood and skilled artisans to build the palace of King David and Solomon’s Temple. Today, this limestone structure sits on the side of a highway just outside the village of Qana, where Jesus is said to have turned water into wine, and is, in modern times, the site of two civilian massacres brought on by military invasions. At 13 feet tall, Nasser’s work is comprised of many smaller paintings ranging from 5 to 16 feet in length that bear impressions of the tomb’s carved limestone surface and are dyed with native Spartium flowers, mixed shrubbery, walnut shells, blackberries, and oleander flowers.
