DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM is pleased to present LEAVES OF GRASS, the second solo show by Israeli Druze artist FATMA SHANAN in the gallery.

Through her oil painting practice, Shanan arranges complex relationships between bodies and spaces. Previously, the artist focused on figuration and self-portraiture paired with representation of traditional carpets and household items, raising questions on the relationship between a woman and her home, public space, and nature. With her current show, Shanan shifts, removing the aesthetic mediator of carpets and domestic space, and depicting only herself on the canvas, in various straining physical positions, while flowers are sprouting from her form and breaking out into the space between her body and surrounding, extensions of hybrid, liberated spirit. The title of the exhibition, Leaves of Grass, derives from the canonic poetry book written by American writer and poet Walt Whitman, originally published in 1855. Shanan reflects on the transcendental ideology, authored by men, and transmutes it into her own figurative paintings, giving it a feminist and ecologically-aware interpretation.