'Seeing through Walls': The compelling art of Thaer Abdallah
Across a yellow canvas, an endless stream of refugees crosses the desert sand. They are the people of “The Nakba,” the catastrophe, Palestinians forced from their homeland 75 years ago this month.
For artist Thaer Abdallah of Shrewsbury, the 60 x 40-inch oil painting is family history. His mother was just 11 and father, 15, when they were expelled from Palestine. Allowed to settle in Iraq — although they could not own property, vote, or become citizens — they married and raised 13 children. Abdallah was their 10th.
From an early age, Abdallah loved to draw. His sketches depict life in the neighborhood. One shows him and his brother at a window watching “Star Trek” on a neighbor’s television. Another depicts bombs falling on houses. In a painting, a woman plays the violin, while behind her on the boulevard, soldiers stop people in traffic.
'In desolation there is hope'
After the second American war in 2005, Shia militias targeted the Palestinians, evicting them from their homes and inflicting violence. Then 35, Abdallah led five families out of Baghdad, fleeing to the Syrian border. Refused admission, they camped for 40 days and nights in “no man’s land.”
In a quiet Shrewsbury neighborhood, where he lives with his wife, two children and a golden retriever, Abdallah and I discuss his journey and he shows me the scene: Painted on black velvet is a cluster of tents under a night sky. The sun has set, but there is a lingering swath of orange in the west, and above, almost as if the stars have been smeared, a thin wash of blue. In desolation there is hope.
The artist would later write, “It was one of the best times of my life.” Homeless and stateless, they felt strangely safe. During the cold nights, the families gathered around a campfire, talking and singing. This pause in their exodus allowed Abdallah to get to know an American woman he had met. A member of a human rights group called Christian Peacemakers, Sheila Provencher and another American had accompanied the families as they sought safety in Syria. Although they knew little of each other’s language, Abdallah and Sheila fell in love.
After six weeks at the border, the Palestinian refugees were allowed into Syria and bused to the Al Hol refugee camp in the northern part of the country. Here they continued to petition for permanent resettlement. Because of his calls to embassies and human rights organizations, Abdallah came under suspicion. He was arrested, accused of spying and imprisoned. After one night in a cell, he was crammed into an underground room with forty others.
Abdallah’s drawings record life in the prison. In one, confined in a space too small to stand, a man crouches over in solitary confinement. In another, prisoners are bound against the wall as they are beaten.
In his memoir, “Song in the Desert,” published in 2020, Abdallah recalls: “I was blindfolded and tortured, with beatings on my legs while my feet were immobilized in a truck tire.” He was also forced to stand, hands tied, in ice-cold showers.
The prisoners were each given one boiled egg for breakfast and one chicken to be shared among forty. Prayer and reading the Koran were forbidden. Meanwhile, Sheila worked furiously on his behalf, contacting the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, Amnesty International and other organizations.
After 70 days in prison, Abdallah was abruptly freed and deported back to Iraq, where he found refuge in the Al-Waleed camp. Through the summer he slowly regained his health and courage. He decided to do what he had done before in the camps, give art lessons to the children, using materials Sheila had sent.
After several months, Abdallah left Al-Waleed and returned to Baghdad, where he found a sister and brother. Because it was not safe, he slept each night in a different place, bedding on the rooftop under the stars. While living in Baghdad, he had helped other Palestinians obtain counterfeit passports that would allow them to flee the country. Now, he too arranged for a passport. With it, he boarded a plane to Istanbul in Turkey.
Three days later, along with others, Abdallah took a bus to the sea town of Marmaris. Here they looked for a smuggler to take them by boat to Greece. After two unsuccessful attempts, Abdallah and 25 other refugees, including a family with three small children, waded into the water and climbed into a motor boat.
'It was too far to swim'
An oil painting depicts the sea craft as it heads through choppy waters for the Island of Mytilene. The sun has set and the blue of sky and water, white churning up from the outboard engine, is turning dark. Inside the crowded hull are two dozen refugees in orange lifejackets.
Halfway into the three-hour passage, the boat’s engine stalled and the boat listed from water coming over the sides. The refugees bailed furiously. The smuggler got the engine working again and they continued until, in the dark, he left them on a rocky outcropping 500 meters from the island. It was too far to swim.
Later that night, they were rescued by the Greek coast guard, which took them to Mytilene. Here they were tested for disease and placed in a refugee camp. While there, Abdallah applied for a visa to the United States. Months later, through Sheila’s efforts, Amnesty International and the offices of Senator Edward Kennedy and Congressman Michael Capuano, he was granted a “fiancé visa” to the United States.
On April 13, 2008, Abdallah’s plane touched down at JFK airport in New York. Clearing customs, he was welcomed by Sheila and her father, Paul, who had driven down from Boston to meet him. Delirious with happiness and relief, he rode in Paul’s ‘90s red Volkswagen to the Provencher home in Walpole, where he was welcomed by Sheila’s mother, Mary Ellen. Eight days later, in a mosque in Wayland, Thaer and Sheila were married.
'Hope for the future'
In 2012 Sheila graduated from Harvard Medical School. That same year, a son, Yusef, was born, and Abdallah became an American citizen. A few months later, he obtained a visa for his mother, still in a refugee camp. Abdallah flew to Istanbul and accompanied her to Boston. For nine months she lived with them before succumbing to a stroke. Her funeral was held at the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Roxbury.
Since his arrival in the United States, while learning English, Abdallah has worked at a variety of jobs, repairing boats, washing dishes in a restaurant and vacuuming floors at Curry College. He has told his story at gatherings in and around Boston. And he has turned again to his canvas, painting people and scenes from the Middle East and America. His first exhibit was held at a Lebanese restaurant in Jamaica Plain. Since then, his paintings have been shown at several galleries. Currently, "The Nakba" is on view at the Gallery at Sanctuary in Medford through July 15, and afterward at Urban Media Arts Gallery in Malden through the end of the summer.
Moving to Shrewsbury, near where Sheila practices family medicine, Abdallah lives a suburban life far from Iraq in distance and culture. Here, however, he is free, and you can often find him at work on his paintings. You might also see Yusef, 11, or Nora, 6, painting at little easels he has set up for them.While many of Abdallah’s paintings speak of the past, one unusual piece of art expresses hope for the future. Titled “Seeing through Walls,” it is a three-panel mosaic crafted by Abdallah and five other artists: Adnane Benali, Phyllis Bluhm, Beverly Shalom, Vivienne Shalom and Richard Youngstrom. A collaborative effort from concept to its installation at Boston City Hall, the mural is a vision of what might be.
Using bits of broken tiles, the artists portray a Jerusalem without soldiers. Instead, as children fly kites and play by a stream, two women, one Israeli and one Palestinian, paint a landscape of peace. In the background are a temple and mosque, while in the foreground gardens grow, trees bear fruit, and families live in safety.
For Abdallah, the art is personal. But it is also universal. “The Nakba” compels us to action on behalf of those seeking refuge around the world. The weary men, women and children in the painting could be the masses fleeing violence in Sudan, or the surge of asylum seekers at our southern border. In a similar way, “Seeing Through Walls” calls us to persevere in the work of justice and peace, not only in the Middle East, but in our own country. It is an antidote to despair.
Likewise, Thaer’s and Sheila’s story reminds us of the enduring power of love.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Thaer Abdallah's paintings tell a story both personal and universal
