The young painter Etaf al-Najili entered the world of art from different gates beginning with painting nature and then national symbols and issues and finally she entered the world of painting by coal.
Etaf 26 makes the most of her time by making drawings and paintings until she feels tired of using colors.
Etaf paints using coal colors and coffee beans. The paintings are directed at people who through her paintings understand her early childhood sense of humor before embarking on the realm of arts and the imagination of the painter.
Freedom of choosing colors
Her paintings vary from an idea that jumped to her head or a notion resulting from the conditions the people of Gaza have lived such as the recent war in 2014 which inspired drawings of the suffering of children and mothers.
The painter Etaf Najili
She turns to the corner of colors in her room and begins drawing the first lines of the painting which develops following hours of work before revealing the full painting.
“I painted nature then the city of Jerusalem and recently made drawings about the (Gaza) crises and cutting off salaries as well as about social issues.”
Najili was unable to complete her university studies and she resorted instead to artistic production including murals.
She told the Palestinian Information Center: “I am a formative artist of the abstract school of arts. My goal is to deliver a message about the question of Palestine to the world. I speak in my drawings about humans (of Gaza) and the siege.”
Etaf does not forget the first gift that her teacher gave her to encourage her first paintings when he gave her some crayons encouraging her to express her artistic ability over cloth and walls.
Pencils
Najili started her arts by using pencils and crayons before using materials made of coal and coffee beans to draw many paintings in which she addressed the mind and the feelings of people.
“The coal drawings have a special advantage. I painted a portrait of the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and then a number of martyrs and personalities such as Ghassan Kanafani Ahmed Shawqi and martyr Nur Baraka.”
She stresses that the surrounding environment impacted her talent greatly and that each painting represents a story and is the product of her internal interaction with the environment which prompts her to react using colors.
Najili dreams of continuing her work as well as improving it so that she can set up a large exhibition that goes beyond the borders of besieged Gaza carrying the message of an artist and a girl in Gaza to the whole world.
