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Politically-Driven Portrait Made of 3,500 Lipsticks

For a show at Birzeit University, Palestinian artist Amer Shomali chose to create a portrait of Leila Khaled, the woman known as the “poster girl of Palestinian militancy.” Unlike a typical portrait, Shomali's medium of choice for this project is lipstick. Rather than painting the iconic member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine with paints or even drawing her image with lipstick, the artist uses a custom-built board on which fully intact tubes of lipsticks are affixed–3,500 tubes, to be exact.

Using 14 different colors, Shomali has managed to recreate the famous image of the revolutionary woman wearing a kaffiyeh and holding an AK-47. Though it's not entirely clear why Khaled's pixelated portrait titled The Icon is made specifically out of lipstick, the piece is open to interpretations. One theory could be the intriguing and controversial juxtaposition of a powerful and independent woman with an item that is associated with frivolous materialism and femininity and how it parallels the contrasting image of Khaled herself, a woman adorned with a traditional Arab headdress typically worn by men while holding a destructive firearm.

Check out the time-lapsed video, below, to see the making of the portrait.




Amer Shomali on Facebook
via [Wave Avenue]

Pinar

Pinar Noorata is the Managing Editor at My Modern Met. She is a writer, editor, and content creator based in Brooklyn, NY. She earned her BA in Film and Media Studies from CUNY Hunter College and is an alumni of the Center for Arts Education’s Career Development Program in NYC. She has worked at major TV, film, and publishing companies as well as other independent media businesses. When she isn’t writing, editing, or creating videos herself, Pinar enjoys watching movies, reading, crafting, drawing, and volunteering at her local animal shelter.
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