Ya Kanada is perhaps the most personal painting in my collection. It sits at the exact intersection of who I am—a Palestinian living in Canada, carrying two histories, two languages, two ways of seeing the world.
The Canadian maple leaf is one of the most recognizable symbols on earth. But what happens when you look closer and discover that its veins are threaded with Palestinian Tatreez? That its red has deepened to include the hues of Mediterranean sunsets? That olive and fig leaves—ancient symbols of Palestinian rootedness—grow alongside it?
The background of the painting is made from actual Canadian Arab newspaper. This was a deliberate choice. I wanted to ground the work in the real, everyday experience of diaspora life—the way identity gets negotiated through language, through media, through the daily act of existing between cultures.
For many Palestinians in Canada, home is not a single place. It is a conversation between the land we carry in our hearts and the land beneath our feet. Ya Kanada is my attempt to paint that conversation.
The Tatreez patterns are not chosen randomly. Each motif in traditional Palestinian embroidery carries meaning—some represent specific villages, others symbolize fertility, protection, or resistance. By weaving these into the maple leaf, I am saying something simple but important: we are here, and we brought our stories with us.
The response to Ya Kanada has been deeply moving. Canadian Palestinians have told me it captures something they struggle to put into words—the feeling of being fully both, never half of either. That is exactly what I hoped this painting would say.