At Dawn and in the West, 2022

Jordan Nassar has adapted the matrilineally-learned tradition of Palestinian tatreez, or cross stitch—most often found on pillows, clothing, and other domestic arts—to mirror his hybridized upbringing in New York. Each hand-embroidered work is stretched and framed, bringing Nassar’s embroidery practice into a dialogue with painting.

Nassar has created an important body of work in collaboration with craftswomen living and working in Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Hebron, which juxtapose local traditions with a contemporary aesthetic. The craftswomen lay the foundations of his panoramas; beginning with a color palette of their own choosing on areas of the canvas predetermined by the artist, Nassar then embroiders multicolored landscapes within these intricate geometric grids.

“At Dawn and in the West”, 2022 is a hand-embroidered landscape with shifting red, pink and blue colorways in uniform geometric square patterning. Here, a cascading valley built from the same square stitching, is lit by a yellow sky and cradled between two tan lines of tight pattern. The mountainscape functions as a window in a scrim of squares.

Nassar frequently draws upon the connection between image-making and language. The inspiration for the title of this work stems from poetry written by the Lebanese-American artist and writer, Etel Adnan.